NGE: Nobody Dies: The Kei Files
by EarthScorpion
Summary: Canonised addition to "NGE: Nobody Dies" by Gregg Landsman. "Come in, come in," said the spider to the fly. In retrospect, sending Kaworu to evaluate the potential value of Kei Ayanami, last of the Ree, was not the wisest of SEELE's decisions...
1. Episode 00

Authorial Note: Yes, the Nobody Dies non-canon fic-addition (fan fiction)^2 club grows larger. No, wait, it doesn't. The Kei Files has actually officially been canonised (see the spacebattles thread for proof), and hence is only fanfic, not (fanfic)^2. And with the appearance of Kei in Chapter 43, this explains how she got to her current state.

Now, the Kei Files cover the exploits... yes, exploits is probably the best word, of the last of the Ree, Kei, who, if you remember, was taken captive by SEELE as a hostage at the end of Chapter 19, for as long as Yui maintains her possession of the Lance of Longinius. She was the one who took over the NERV base, actually speaks properly, instead of Rei-style, and is generally... well, kinda a-budding-evil-genius. Just like her_ human_ mother. Which is probably more dangerous, actually; only one of Lilith and Yui are nailed to a cross in NERV's basement, after all. The other _runs_ the place.

So... anyway. Enjoy.

* * *

**Nobody Dies: The Kei Files**

**Episode 00**

The circle of monoliths stood on a plane which was, if not infinite (and it was not), as large as the impressive computational resources that SEELE could bring to the task could produce.

"And what of Dr Ikari's pet monsters?" asked 04. "To be precise, the one which we possess. I feel that this tool has more use than as a simple bargaining tool."

"Do not underestimate the utility of _any_ leverage over Dr Ikari,"

"She has always been dangerously independent," added 06, with what would have been disapproval in its voice, had it not been an emotionless monolith designed to obscure the identity of the individual communicating through it as much as possible.

"And whose fault is that?" asked 09.

"Presumably that of the individuals who let her build up her power base without sufficient constraints," said 06, as quickly as the words could come out.

There was a pause.

"That wasn't what I meant," said 09, a tone which, if it had not been a distorted, mechanical, emotionless rendition of the words, would have been deemed to be sulky entering the voice. "You know that."

"Silence." The words from 01 were flat, and level. As usual.

"Seriously, can we get some emotional modulation in these things," asked 02. "It really would make these meeting easier."

"Table it for the next meeting," ordered 01.

There was a pause.

"Who is the scribe, exactly," asked 05, once a sufficient amount of time had passed.

"You know, that sort of subverts the point of a anonymous meeting," said 09. "But, if you meant, which one of us is responsible for transcribing these events... then that would be me."

"Ahem!" said 01, and it very much was a word, rather than a clearing of a throat. "What... what were we even talking about before?"

"The eighth of Dr Ikari's pet monsters," said 06, promptly. "It has been proposed that we are making insufficient use of the asset of a Nephilim... and one which is descended from She Who Ate From the Tree of Knowledge, not from the Tree of Life, it might be added."

"That is certainly a valid point," agreed 11.

"What is proposed, then?" asked 01.

There was a pause, as each member of SEELE tried to work out how to play this to his or her best advantage. 06 was the first to respond. "Obviously, it would be foolish to simply remove the being from its deep freeze," it rumbled. "Quite apart from the fact that as a Lilithian-entity, it is innately harder to control," and all of the room was aware of the irony of that statement, "it is loyal as a daughter to Dr Ikari. Moreover, above and beyond that, it is unstable, as with all but one of its kind."

"There are... things which can be done to remedy that," said 02, slowly.

"Indeed. And they should be considered. If and only if the entity can be found to be useful in some way which overcomes the not-inconsiderable cost and dangers that stability would bring to us. And risks." 08's words were, in pacing, disapproving. "Be aware of the risks."

"Hence why I do not propose warming it, yet," retorted 06. "It is kept in a virtual reality simulation, within a self-contained environment. It is isolated. From within there, it may be examined. Studied."

"Speak your mind," said 01.

"I propose that we send Tabris to ascertain the potential value of the asset," said 06. "And... he seems to exhibit a certain... fascination with that geneline. I am sure that he will not be hard to persuade," he added drily. "As a VR simulation, the risks involved are minimal."

It was, with debate, enough to sway SEELE to that point of view. After all, nothing could go wrong, correct?

...


	2. Episode 01

**Nobody Dies: The Kei Files**

**Episode 01**

...**  
**

Kaworu Nagisa, the pilot of Evangelion Unit 06, and a great number of other, more sinister things besides that, could feel his core temperature drop, as the chill liquid that surrounded and enveloped him permeated him to the core. To a baseline human, the experience would have been unpleasantly close to fatal; only the life support machinery that he was threaded up to would have prevented brain death, as the vital things that made up a human body (squishy meat and dirty water, nothing more) shut down. To him... it was interesting, to push his body to new levels. He had done this before, of course, but that had been more than a little while ago.

He closed his eyes.

And opened his eyes again.

Okay. That had not been what he had been expecting. According to the information he had been given by SEELE, they had merely "borrowed" a copy of the normal environment that the Ree were contained within. Before this incursion, he had been familiarised with every single permutation (and there had been far too many of them) possible, and nothing should have been a surprise.

Of course, the fact was that, technically speaking, it was their Magi that the simulation was being run on (Magi 10, 11 and 12, to be exact), and thus, if one were to be technical, they should have been able to know exactly what the entity contained within was doing. Apparently, SEELE's control was not as tight as they might have liked. Metaphorically, what Kei had done was to put up her own set of locks and bolts on the inside of the jail cell which she was contained. And blocked up all the spy-holes.

Kaworu smiled. Of course. He would expect nothing less from one related to Rei Ayanami. One who was, in a sense, Rei Ayanami, only separated from her by chance.

Humming, he set off down the wide, art-deco corridor, the antiquated architecture a pleasant counterpoint to the fact that he had chosen to wear a suit (or, at the very least, spawn his avatar with one) for this meeting. And as soon as he had starting doing that, some unseen intercom system joined in, playing the same music, but rendered on an epic scale, as if the unseen mistress of this world had a full orchestra at her disposal. She most probably did.

Almost an hour later, it was starting to get on his nerves. She had been playing the same damn song all the time. Over, and over, and over again. And although Kaworu Nagisa did appreciate Beethoven, there existed more in the collection of the musical knowledge of the Lilim than _just_ this one refrain.

By the three hour mark, he was close to snapping. He had been walking around this damned labyrinth for far too long, and she was just playing with him! How was he meant to talk to her, if she wouldn't even show herself. It wasn't like there was even anyone else in this place, not even any limited sapience programmes. That was... aha. There is was. A noise, like a rattle, in the pipes.

Silently, Kaworu cursed his own foolishness. They were fond of pipes, weren't they? He glanced around... plush red curtains, white marble floors, acrylic advertising posters... aha. That large, ornate brass opening, the one about head height, that looked to be like some kind of air ventilation system (itself a ridiculous prospect in this virtual simulation). Whistling to himself (and the damn music was still playing!), he siddled up to the vent, and then, on one blurred motion, punched upwards with an AT-Field surrounded fist, through the brass, to grab a leg, yanking hard, and sending a small, blue-haired shape sprawling on the floor before him.

He dusted off a non-existent dust-particle from his white jacket, and then bowed, deeply. "Kei Ayanami, I presume?" he said, with a smile.

A little girl, eyes solid red, hair in braids, glared back up at him. The little girl's face was screwed up, as if she was on the verge of tears. "Nooo~ooo, stupid," she said, the arrogance of a five-year old in her voice.

Kaworu paused. This... wasn't how it was meant to go. At all. It was meant to be a beautiful romantic meeting, him in his immaculate clothing, where he would wow her, and explain the innate righteousness of his position. Or, failing that, she would quickly and rapidly apply large amounts of violence to him, possibly... violating... him in ways that were, nevertheless, interesting. Not just... annoying him like this. Putting in stupid restrictions. Making things hard. "Please," he said, fluttering his eyelashes at her. "Don't insult my intelligence. I do expect that..."

"Look, you're an Angel," interrupted the little girl, pointing at him. "I can see the Adam coming from your belly." She pouted. "And you should let go of me. Mr Rippy doesn't like people playing with his little sister."

The boy was about to ask what she meant by that, when an all-too-familiar roar sounded exactly behind him. Spinning, AT-Field flaring, it was still not enough to stop what looked vaguely like a diminutive copy of Unit 00, riveted together and cast in bronze, with the single bright-red eye in the centre of its forehead resembling a porthole more than anything else, punching him in the head, somewhat like the fist of an angry god. That is to say, exactly like the fist of an angry god. Because that was what it, from a certain viewpoint, was.

Kaworu smashed through the wall, the solid concrete giving way, and arched down, through the raised level, and down into a shallow pool of water, in the middle of what looked remarkably like a Romanesque atrium. It was, in fact, not actually deep enough to prevent him from slamming into the bottom, but instead only made it so that his fall ended in an appropriately dramatic splash.

Drenched and undignified, he scrambled out of the pool, terrified... no, _concerned_, that it would turn out that the water was in fact some kind of potent acid, or, indeed, that there were sharks with laser cannons attached to their heads resident in it. He had, after all, read Kei's file before coming to this place, and after the mistake he had made with her sister, had actually looked at the psychological profile. Not very long, it must be admitted; once again, he had been rather more interested in such mission-important information like her bust size, and waist, but, at least this time, he had looked. And one thing he had noted was the megalomania, which, from his point of view, was actually a much more attractive trait than sociopathy. After all, every evil empress needed, at the very least, a sycophantic lackey, and there were, depending on her proclivities, several more valid ways to her heart, or at least into her bed. Well, a bed wasn't strictly necessary, but Kaworu was of the opinion that it was good taste. And taste, after all, was paramount.

Sometimes, SEELE had wondered about the wisdom of giving their Nephilim a body which was going to go through puberty just as the Angels, as a whole, were expected to show up. But Kihl Lorenz had insisted on it, and none of the others had cared enough to face the loss of capital that would result from such a public divide.

In retrospect, that had perhaps not been the wisest of decisions.

Another one of the little girls, flanked by two of the Unit-00-cast-in-bronze _things_... he was just going to call them Big Brothers, from now on, was waiting for him as he tried to flee. With a gap-toothed grin, she passed him an envelope, with "Kaworu Nagisa" written on the front, in very (some might have felt "excessively") elaborate handwriting.

_Dear Mr Nagisa,_

_I must say, it is interesting to have another intrude upon my humble abode. I am sorry to say that, since my unjust imprisonment here, I have not met another independent being, and so, as a consequence, especially in light of my previous close familial relationships, have been experiencing the feeling of loneliness. That is not to say, of course, that exclusive access to a VR simulation supported by a Magi Triumvirate has not had its advantages (not least the lack of siblings to act as the destructive influences within the world of perfect order I would otherwise build),but even then, there are limits to what I can build with the limited resources available to me, locked as I am away from assets such as the Internet, or communication with my sisters. The world you see around you, I have built; a place of wonder and fascination and very good taste, but I believe I can improve it, and indeed desire to do so if I am to be forced to live here like this._

_Certainly, I would most cordially like to meet you. I am certain that you will require something from me, and there are certain requests I would wish to make of you in turn, to ease some of the more disquieting aspects of my captivity._

_With greatest regards, and best wishes,_

_Yours sincerely,_

_Kei Ayanami_

The grey-haired boy let out a genuine smile. She... she was actually interested in meeting with him. And was civil, and actually was able to hold a cogent sentence, without (he shuddered, but in a refined manner), the annoying habit of those elongated greetings. And, from the point of view of SEELE, she was actually interested in co-operation, aware that they held the upper hand.

She... was even better than expected. And if he could persuade SEELE to stabilise her... his mind filled with images largely composed of a lot of pale flesh, with occasional patches of blue.

"Turn it over," said the little girl, keeping her glowing red-within-red eyes locked on him.

He did so.

_PS: Of course, I'm not foolish enough to actually trust an agent of SEELE such as yourself, especially one who was instrumental in my capture. Hence, we shall meet on my terms, or not at all._

_Luckily, I am very good at ensuring that things happen on my terms._

_Did I mention that I'd coated this letter in a skin-contact sedative? Of course not. That would have been a bad decision. You might have done something to counteract it, unless you'd been distracted in some way, perhaps by reading the letter, and then sighing in misguided lust. So I won't tell you that I did.  
__  
And even then, considering the elements of the physiology we both share, it would be only temporary, unless I did something further to ensure your incapacity lasted until the preparations for our meeting were quite complete._

_I would say I'm sorry, but I am not, and it is rude for a lady to lie._

"Oh f..." managed Kaworu, before the first blow from one of the bronze titans broke his jaw.

All in all, he would probably have preferred if he had just been knocked out by the poison. Or, indeed, by the comprehensive beating he got from the monsters. It took a gaggle of the red-eyed girls, their hair various shades of cerulean, and the vicious syringes they carried, filled with an orange fluid, to take him down him properly.

His last thoughts, before the darkness claimed him, was that things were back on track by the usual standards of his meetings with people who had the surname "Ayanami".

...


	3. Episode 02

**Nobody Dies: The Kei Files**

Episode 02

...

Kei Ayanami leant back in her ornate chair (in truth, more of a throne), and twirled the entirely unnecessary parasol slung over her shoulder. Blue and white and black blended and spun in a pattern which was more than a little hypnotic. Carefully, she lifted the fine china teacup, and took a sip from it, her eyes never leaving her opposing counterpart's face, before putting it down again on the table that separated the two, with an elegant 'clink'. A wave of a pale hand set the orchestra that made up one entire wall of this vast dining hall to play.

Kaworu could not repress a shudder, as the chain around his ankle clinked. After a moment, though, he relaxed, as Hayden's Opus 50, the famous Prussian Quartets, and thus decidedly not-Ode-to-Joy, began to play.

He was afraid that she had probably ruined that melody for him.

He took a sip from his own cup, feeling the ache in his jaw (she had deigned to remove the physical manifestations of the injuries, but leave the pain of a healed wound, "In part payment for your complicity in my abduction," she had said), and considered how best to start.

With something inoffensive, was his best idea. Because an Ayanami offended was an Ayanami who liked to spread the pain.

He raised the cup again, in half-salute. "The aesthetics of this room are exquisite, even by your standards, Miss Ayanami," he began. "But I must ask something. How realistic is this simulation? How constrained are you by the external laws of physical reality?"

Spin. Swirl. "Whatever do you mean by that, Mr Nagisa?" she asked him calmly.

He paused. "Well, take, for example, the window," he said, gesturing to his right, where the entire wall was one single transparent mass, showing an ocean vista. Just scant metres from him was what in physical reality would have been crushing depths, where opalescent coral grew, and... was that a giant cybernetically-enhanced squid wearing some kind of mind-control collar that had just jetted past? It was quite possible; probable, even. "What I mean to say is that, considering the pressure exists at these depths, could a place such as this physically exist outside this simulation?"

"Of course, Mr Nagisa," she said back, with a smile. "It is all a matter of design and simple applications of physical principles. I would however, raise question at _you_," and she fluttered her eyelashes at him... she actually fluttered her eyelashes at him! "You of all people raising objections based on _Lilim_ understandings of the sciences." She gave a small, chiming laugh. "In fact, I would say that it is almost ironic."

Kaworu leant back. Suppressing the surge of hormones, he narrowed his eyes. This... this was interesting. She was interesting. And... well, she had just let slip that Yui Ikari had been giving her pets rather more information about their nature and the goals of the factions involved in this great game than SEELE had previously been aware of. That was perhaps not surprising; Rei, as the only one of this lineage of Nephilim to be stable, and so permitted free access to the world, was not the easiest to obtain knowledge from. Hmm. Unless this one had drawn these conclusions on her own. He was uncertain. "We are both partially human," he said, with an equal smile back. "Should we not accept our natures, in both the human as well as the Angelic?"

"I am closer to humanity than you are, Mr Nagisa," she said. "Consider our ancestries. You are a blend of both Big Mommy's... ahem, that is to say, Lilith-descended life, as well as a child of Adam. I am not. I, like my sisters, and like all humans, am a purely Lilithian lifeform, though we are closer to the ultimate matron of humanity than any other human, or, indeed, you. And you, you who has eaten from the Tree of Life, but only bears the Tree of Knowledge in his ancestry... you apply your understanding of the human sciences above and beyond the light of your soul." She smiled, a wide, toothy grin which suddenly brought to mind her sisters. "Scandalous. And yet fascinating. In fact, I dare say, Mr Nagisa, you are going to quite some lengths to make yourself interesting to me." Kei coughed. "But, with regards to the original question, the 'window' is in fact a single diamond, shaped in a fashion such that a force on any one part is spread evenly throughout the entire structure. It is mathematically perfect. And it is only a proof of concept. Soon, Mr Nagisa, the world shall know my genius."

"You could actually build that in the real world?"

Kei frowned then, marring her pale face. "I have plans and everything! But Little Mommy... ahem, I mean, Yui vetoed them."

Kaworu nodded sympathetically. This was the first sign of an opening. Perhaps, with effort, he could work on it.

"I _only_ required eight N^2 warheads, too!" she added. "The trick is shaping the charge such that the pure carbon in the centre is crushed into an appropriate form. I even got Nana to check my calculations, and she... well, once she had got over the idea of having access to that many N^2 mines, could find no flaws. Naturally."

Ah. Perhaps not.

He could hear the stomp of one of the monstrous brass titans as it came up behind him, see the yellow light from its single eye shining over his shoulder. He turned... no, this one more resembled Unit 02, except for the fact that one of its arms appeared to be a drill. It was not a nice drill. It was obviously designed to remove stubborn things like rock and coral, and so the considerably-less-durable material that composed the human neck (and even the Nephilim neck) would be no trouble.

The only thing that prevented him from fleeing was the fact that the monster was dressed in a tuxedo, carried a bottle of Champaign in a bucket of ice, and the little girl sitting on its back wore a maid's uniform. And the fact that his legs were still restrained, of course.

"Dinner is served, my lady," a piping voice announced. "In the Brass-and-Green-Fire Dining Room."

...

"I suspect you, of all people, would be interested in the history of this room, Mr Nagisa," Kei said, looking out through the transparent walls of the vast sphere, which hung, orbited by similar, though smaller copies, over the sprawling, impossible city below them. She carefully cut a small piece of the excellently done meat, and swallowed it.

Kaworu agreed that he might be. The lighting was certainly unusually... green, and the way the bathysphere had surfaced in a sea which appeared to be made out of acid, given the way it dissolved the escort of giant squid as they shifted across the boundary transition... well, water didn't normally act like that. The fact that the monstrous inhabitants of this place had been rather busy supplicating themselves to the two Nephilim as they walked through the streets, and occasionally holding impromptu sacrifices of the weaker or slower members of the species had been highly satisfying, though.

"This... this was the last iteration of a simulated experiment I spent quite a while running. This experiment took up so much of the processing capacity your masters had permitted me, I was forced to live in a small blank cell. I could support nothing more while it was in process. And that was a long time, even with the fact that I was running it at a several hundred times personal time." Her fingers tapped rhythmically on the table. "Now. What do you think it was on, if I think that you would find it interesting?"

Kaworu sat back, and frowned slightly. "Interesting. Hmm. Several things spring to mind, but of them, all but one can be discarded due to the processing demands that you mentioned." He raised an eyebrow. "It is something to do with," he gave a small chuckle, "our _unshared_ heritage. Our shared nature." He glanced outside, through the vast crystal sphere. "And judging from the nature of where we're dining, and its resemblance to Ramiel... you were trying to create Angels." He kept his face level, but inside, he was elated. She too had turned her mind to the continuation of her lineage. Had she worked it out yet? That the Nephilim were the only route for independence? If so... she might willingly cooperate with him. SEELE would only need to stabilise her, would only need to be _persuaded_ to stabilise her, and then...

Kei smiled, a little too widely. "Almost. Almost. No, that is a separate set of experiments. This," she gestured, "was an experiment into lineal sociality. Whether multiple Angel-like... indeed, primogenitor-like beings could co-operate and co-exist. I started with two, based heavily on what I know about Big Mommy... ahem, I mean, Lilith, and of your own progenitor. But then a thought struck me."

Kaworu glanced out over the burning landscape. "You wanted to see what would happen if all the Angels were elevated to a similar status."

The girl sounded delighted. "Yes! Whether such a thing could ever be stable!"

"I'll presume not."

She shook her head. "No. Every single time. Axiomatically, I took as an assumption that each Primogenitor would be able to spawn both their own Angel-like, and Lilim-like beings... you will agree that, from what we know, is reasonable."

Kaworu paused, sitting back. "Not necessarily," he said. "Although you, yourself, are proof that Lilith is capable of generating both pseudo-Angelic..."

"Pseudo? Only as much as you are, yourself. And I, unlike certain of my sisters, am fully aware of the potential that lies within, should I destabilise."

The boy raised his eyebrows. "Really? Then why did you take over a NERV Satellite base, and so put yourself..." he smiled faintly, "...indeed, your _self_ at risk? It was that very deed which allowed your kidnapping." He paused. "I am very sorry to say," he lied.

"I was bored." The words were flat, and level. "From what Rei told me, it is not as if you do not do things out of boredom... or at least some _other_ strong emotion." The last words were said with sardonic amusement.

Kaworu shifted uncomfortably. "And you do a wonderful job at suppressing the more Lilithian aspects of your personality," he said, hastily. Largely because he did not want them to emerge now, because, honestly, this evening... whatever time of day it was, had been fun, in that he had only received a few injuries which would have crippled a human, rather than kill them. Which was more than could have been said for his interactions with this girl's sister.

"Yes. I am aware of it." She paused, and smirked at him. "Are you, Mr Nagisa?"

"Aware of what?"

"How Lilith affects you through your human heritage."

The boy took his gaze away from Kei, and looked out over the vast city of corroded bronze. This was a little discomforting... and, frankly, he suspected that it was deliberate. She was distracting him, trying to change the topic. No, she was forcing him to show his interest in her works, by making him ask for her to continue. That way, he would be forced to give her concessions in order to get the information on a subject which he knew that she knew that he was interested in.

Just how much did she know about what he knew that she knew that he knew? He wanted to know, and suspected that was just another distraction. Kaworu Nagisa had, after all, also read Yui Ikari's file, and had actually paid attention to it. In full. And not only because he wanted to see what the Ayanamis would look like when they were older (the answer was "very pleasing").

She waved a hand at him. "Please. Think about it. As a favour to me." She paused, before continuing, in a more clinical tone. "But... you were saying, Mr Nagisa?"

Kaworu nodded. "Yes. Uh... yes, I am not sure that the assumption that Adam could spawn races similar to the Lilim is valid."

"The data I had available to me was limited," Kei snapped back, a sudden viciousness in her tone. She took a deep breath. "If you could persuade your masters to release more information, especially on Adam, I would be more than willing to rerun the experiments. But I do not believe that the results would be changed."

"And these results were?"

The blue-haired girl pushed a button on the arm of her chair, and the surface of the table suddenly morphed, into a flat surface, a map of a fake world. "I began with a pseudo-random, normatively causal expanse, and via certain metastate evolutionary processes, including the capacity for evolutionary self-definition, and certain of my own studies into my nature, I altered the starting conditions such that it favoured the creation of beings which resembled Adam and Lilith, as much as was possible. In this version, the most stable iteration..." she paused, "that might have been it, come to think of it."

"What?"

"The reason for the stability." Her red eyes were alight with sudden glee. "I programmed in much more capacity for suffering, for malevolence, for betrayal and pettiness in these starting conditions. I made my creations _suffer_, and that enhanced their self-definition. I kept them apart from each other, and they grew stronger, more able to define their own nature from the acasual chaos. And... well, I was so _proud_ of them when they invented time.[/i]

Kaworu shrugged. "That only stands to reason," he said. "The Lilim require pain and suffering to remain discrete entities; it is their deafness to each other which maintains their flawed separation."

"That is my logic, yes, Mr Nagisa. I am not aware of the events that created Adam and Lilith; the latter has always... well, not been able to keep her mind focussed, on those few rare occasions that we made our way to her." She stared at him, eyes divided by a single finger pressed to the ridge of her nose. "Hmm... and is it not ironic that the suffering ones, who are pained by their eternal division, the Lilim, are the ones who have inflicted suffering on them." It was not a question. "Perhaps they might be viewed as the severity of God, instead. Or perhaps his venom." The last word was said with too much relish for the boy's comfort.

"Perhaps," he said, warily. He cut off a small piece of meat and ate it. It had gone cold.

"Oh, where are my manners!" Kei exclaimed. "I do have a tendency to talk too much. Please, sit back. Let me warm it again." Another button was pressed, and a laser unfolded from the ceiling.

Somewhat surprisingly, the fact that she had laser cannons somehow hidden in a transparent sphere did not come was a surprise to the male Nephilim. It was, however, as he sliced off another thin section, done to perfection.

"I went to some lengths to prepare the best meal for your taste," she added. She blushed, slightly, and, in Kaworu's opinion, rather adorably. "I have, as I mentioned, no visitors, and little to do."

That was a blatant lie, in the boy's opinion. "Please, continue," he said, out loud.

"Yes... this," she gestured outside, "was the most stable configuration. I had over forty entities co-existing for almost ten thousand years of subjective time. They spawned so many races, so many Angelic sub-souls... indeed, some of the sub-souls spawned their own children, which may," she frowned, "have been a flaw in my model; I did not expect for them to do that. And despite that, despite all that... the same happened as happened every single time." She slammed her hand into the table, making the entire floating sphere rock slightly. "Every! Single! _Flurgen!_ Time!"

"'Flurgen'?" asked Kaworu. "What does that mean?"

"In all honesty, I'm not exactly sure. But I know it means something utterly vile, as Little Mommy only uses it when she gets angry."

"Ah. Pray, continue."

"Yes. Every single time one of these entities gained an reliance on outside tools, in every single iteration of my simulation, the other Angel-simulations turned on it. Not actively trying to kill it, but holding it in contempt, petty cruelties." She flapped a hand. "It may have been because such tool-users were, without exception, weak, and often sickly things, doomed to die compared to the other immortal god-things. It does not matter. The fact is, every time this happened... the tool-user built Angel-killing tools, and killed, or imprisoned and metaphysically castrated every single other one."

Kaworu leaned forwards. "Every time?"

"Every time."

"No survivors?"

"Well," and it was a harsh, clipped word, "occasionally, one other Angel-simulation could survive, by immediately co-operating with the tool-user." Kei smiled at him warmly, with what, to Kaworu's teenage eyes looked like genuine affection, her red eyes crinkling up at the corners. "And it had to do so immediately. Think of it like the Prisoner's Dilemma, Mr Nagisa, except with one important difference. Unless you defect first, you will _die_."

The boy... was feeling very, very confused. Very, very, very confused. And more than a little aroused. The contents of her speech, and the emotional signals she was giving off didn't match. As a result, he perhaps didn't put as much thought into his response as he should have. "Is this... a threat?" he asked.

She gave a slightly disappointed sigh, as if he had failed her in his response. "No, Mr Nagisa. If I were threatening you, I would have said, 'Unless you defect first, _you_ will die.' I did not do so. Also, I would have had had it so that the lasers in the ceiling were pointed at you, and that there are heavily armoured artificial lifeforms specifically designed to take you down within striking distance." She paused. "Would you care for more wine, by the way?"

There was a rumbling from the 'waiter' that stood behind him.

Kaworu did the only thing that he could. He burst out laughing. "Oh, my. That... that was brilliant. The way you manoeuvred the entire conversation around, just so you could say that..." His expression levelled, back to its normal faint amusement. "But, in all seriousness, that was indeed fascinating. And ties directly into the reasons for my visit."

Kei only smiled.

"You are aware of the reasons, of course. After all this, after this meal and what you did to me before, you are exceptionally intelligent and well-informed."

"Yes. Get the compliments out of the way," she said, idly picking up the rest of the meat on her fork, and tearing off a chunk with an atypical lack of manners.

Why, certainly. Have I mentioned that your hair is a fetching shade of blue. I would describe it as the colour of a midsummer sky, up in the highest peaks around Geneva..."

"That was an instruction to get to the point. You can admire my beauty afterwards." Kei paused. "After all, beauty is fleeting, power is vulnerable, and I do not endanger the latter for the sake of the former."

"Ah. Very well. To be quite honest, SEELE wishes to investigate your use as a potential asset."

"And what are they prepared to offer me?" The retort was perfectly level.

"To begin with... increased privileges. More access to computing resources, possibly even restricted access to the internet and other external sources of information. Heavily monitored, of course; they do not trust you..."

"... and I do not trust them," Kei said, with a shrug.

"Of course. But... assuming they could trust you, there is something that only they could offer you." He paused. "Stability. Your core could be stabilised," he added, an odd note in his voice, "and you would no longer be forced to spend your life in cold-sleep, to avoid death or loss of your humanity. You would be free to do what you wanted. Like Rei is. Like I am. They just need to be able to trust you," he said, almost pleading. It was not only a ploy.

He was sure that, just for a moment, he saw a flash of interest, of hope in those red eyes. She glanced away for a moment, covering her mouth with a pale hand, and blinked. When she turned back, her face was perfectly calm. "I see," she replied. "But, obviously, it would be foolish of me to demand that as a starting position."

Kaworu nodded. "Yes."

"In that case, I am prepared to offer up my research into Angelic lineal relationships. It is, as I have noted, of limited accuracy, due to the lack of resources available to me, but it is soundly grounded in what I know. And considering who I am... well, SEELE might be able to do better, but only with much effort, and I doubt that Little Mommy would release what I am sure that she has done, so this is one of the best deals you shall get."

The boy smiled. "I presume that, given the way you raised the issue, you would want a fair exchange of information."

"No. In fact, my desires are more selfish," Kei admitted. "I need more processing capacity... which translates directly into living space. As it stands, this room is taking up almost all of the runtime your masters have given me."

"This room is the size of a small world," Kaworu pointed out, unable to stop himself.

"Yes... but even then, I am cheating to impress you. The city's inhabitants; I killed them to reduce the load."

"You killed them?"

Kei shrugged. "I can always make more. Trivially."

"What do you want?"

"Exclusive access to a single Magi. As it stands, I am spread between three; 10,11 and 12. Just give me the majority of one of them, I don't care. I am used to life in Magi 00, with control over it."

"That is a lot of potential power," he said warily. "And they will not like it."

"Remember the Magi Triumvirate system, and how it works. The other two computers can always veto any attempt I make to break the rules of my captivity. You know just as well as I do that there is no way that unpermitted access to the outside world would be permitted, or that I could somehow conceal an outgoing connection. And, in all honesty, tell your masters to consider it as an investment. With more computing power, I can run better simulations, which they will be able to use. And I may feel more favourably inclined towards them, if they make it so that I do not have lock myself in a blank room for weeks to run proper models." She leant forwards, lips parted slightly in a faint smile. "More favourable towards them, and to whoever was responsible for making my life more pleasant."

"Well... I shall certainly put your case across," Kaworu said, hurriedly, almost tripping over himself.

"I... I would like to see you again," Kei said, staring at him. "With good news, hopefully... but even then, you have been interesting. You are the first person I have seen since... well, since I saw you last, who wasn't fundamentally a product of my own mind."

Kaworu leaned closer to her, tucking his grey hair back. His red eyes met hers. "It must be hard for you," he said.

She shook her head, face emotionless. "No. I get good news, and I will be happy. And I am generous... I like to spread my happiness around. It is a sound policy, because it encourages other people to make me happy. But if I am made unhappy..."

The words were left hanging, not at all, to name a completely random choice, a grey-haired boy, impaled on meathooks, who had just been skinned, and used to make a comfortable and hard-wearing leather coat.

He coughed, stood up and said his farewells. He got the hint. He very much got both of them. Just as the world started to pixelise, Kei waved to him, and pointed at his empty plate with her fork. Quite clearly, he heard her say, "And you were delicious, by the way."

Kaworu Nagisa sat up in the tank of cool goo, and shuddered. She had to have done that to freak him out. Still, all in all, that had gone pretty well. By his admittedly lax standards.

Kei sat back, fingers arched, alone once more. She paused. Pulling open a drawer in the table which no outside observer could possibly have noticed before, largely because it had not existed, she looked at the immaculately folded contents, and the object that rested on top of them. No. She was saving them for a special occasion.

The soft chuckle she gave would have struck fear into the hearts of anyone familiar with Yui Ikari.

It had been said that the way to a man's heart was through his stomach. That was objectively false, in her experience; it was a much more direct to just go straight through the chest, unless you wanted to remove the organ intact, in which case, yes, going in, under the ribcage was faster than having to break it open. Unless you had specialist tools, of course.

But Kei was not interested in the other Nephilim's heart. She already had that, so a sufficient degree. What she was after was his mind. And although, yes, there were faster ways (such as going straight in through the eyesocket), they wouldn't be as effective as what she had planned.

Oh, Little Mommy was going to be _so_ proud of her.

...


	4. Episode 03

**Nobody Dies: The Kei Files**

Episode 03

...

Kaworu Nagisa stood once more on a very-large plane, surrounded by the sequentially numbered monoliths of SEELE.

"Your analysis of her?" asked 01, in its booming, emotionless voice.

The boy straightened up, smiling. "Attractive." He left that floating in the air just enough to annoy the faceless columns, to make them suspect that he had neglected his duties, and then continued, "Highly intelligent... no, a genius. Emotionally stable, and very much able to delay gratification if it serves her own desires, unlike her sister. Amoral; I suspect her attachment to Yui Ikari, although real, is much more tenuous than any of the others of her geneline. I can certainly confirm the megalomaniacal tendencies noted in the psychological reports 'obtained' from NERV, but, as I previously noted, quite capable of delayed gratification. And very..." the Nephilim paused for words, trying not to accidentally insult his masters, "... human, by which I mean, she is capable of the full range of emotions and patterns of thought of one of the Lilim, compared to the more restricted thoughts of the Angels." He flicked a glance towards 06. "She is aware of both parts of her heritage, not just factually, but also how they affect her modes of thought. And I could see, when watching her, the lengths that she goes to avoid falling into Lilith-like attitudes, but it still occasionally seeps through."

"She is exceptionally dangerous, then," said 08, the pattern of intonations revealing their disapproval. "A Nephilim capable of thinking like a human, but not purely bound to human modes of thought, like Uriel is, is..."

"... useful," interrupted 11.

"A threat," countered 04.

"The two are not mutually contradictory," said 09. "It is not as if we do not have our own assets who would think nothing of using unnatural mental influence on a member of the Committee."

"Why, thank you," Kaworu said, drily.

"Silence, Tabris," instructed 01.

"From the data that was obtained from the meeting, in addition to the pre-existing psychological profiles, I would not necessarily say that she purely resembles Yui Ikari, though," said 03. "That would appear to be the dominant mode of thought, but, as Tabris has pointed out, there remain inhuman influences, even if she attempts to minimise them. Not only that, but there are certain... data points which bear more similarities with Gendo Ikari, and, of course, one cannot ignore the effects of that breach in their containment several months before the arrival of the Third Child."

There was a short, harsh laugh from 06, made distorted and inhuman by the sound filter. "A Gendo Ikari removed from his wife's influence, perhaps. He is too under her control to be a threat on his own, as it stands."

SEELE was divided, both as an organisation, but also each member internally. The Angels were coming now; there was no more time left for the kind of long term plans that produced assets such as this. And the game had changed with the elimination of Adam, for the new Cherubim had not been predicted by the Dead Sea Scrolls. Humanity was operating blind into this new future, and that was something which put it at a disadvantage, because while each Angel was a walking disaster, mankind required fuel, and supply lines, and other all-so-easily breakable things to ensure its survival. What if, for example, one of these new threats began to target unprotected populations across the world? The public outcry of the populace would split the Evangelions thin, leaving the only thing that really mattered less defended than it should... nay, _must_ be. And that was not even to mention the thorn in their sides who was Yui Ikari; she should not have been here, by their projections, and as a result, NERV was too strong relative to its masters.

From all of this, access to a new Nephilim was a major asset. Control of a new Nephilim with a Yui-like mindset, and a proven genetic skill for piloting... that was almost priceless. But the key word was 'almost'. And tolerance for disloyalty was the price that they would not pay.

There was silence, as individual members thought it over, and perhaps consulted with each other over closed channels.

"And what of her responses to your enquiries?" asked 09, breaking the long silence. "We remain unable to break the defences she has put up, without giving her enough warning that she can delete anything she might not want us to see."

Kaworu remained silent.

"Tabris?"

"Oh, am I permitted to speak again?" the boy asked, raising an eyebrow.

"That is childish."

"I am a Child. It says so on my plug suit, along with my number."

"So was that," stated 01.

"Very well." The grey-haired boy gave a shrug. "In the areas of the simulation she has sealed off from your view... which is to say, all of them, she has been running experiments." Inwardly, the boy was elated. That was just an admission of something he had already known, had already found out on his own investigations. He now had access to a place that they could not see, where there was another (highly attractive) Nephilim, who seemed to be edging towards the same realisations that he had already had. "Some of them appear to be mere exercises in removing boredom, such as the experiment in human socialisation where she produced a mid-functioning set of beta-level simulations, and subjected them to social pressures, to see how they broke. She did not assign much value to those results. But there is one intriguing line of investigation, which even I must admit that I did not anticipate."

"Explain."

"She is willing to trade her research into Progenitor-style socialisation for certain expanded privileges."

"Explain."

"On whether entities such as Adam or Lilith could even mutually exist, on the same world. Or, as we would be especially interested, whether an Angelic-lifeform which obtained self-sufficiency could co-exist with another one."

There was a susurration of excited chatter.

"What does she want?" asked 01, suspicious. "Internet access? Something she could use for escape?"

Kaworu folded his hands behind his back. "No," he said. "She was aware that we do not trust her, and so asked for something that certainly cannot be used in that way, because there are pre-existing systems that prevent it." He explained to the Old Men about the offer that Kei had made to him, and so through him, to them. The words were kept scrupulously neutral and impassive; his _own_ goals would not be served by letting SEELE learn of the potential investment, emotional and otherwise, that he had in another stable Ayanami.

"Of course," he added, "merely because the Triumverate system exists, does not mean that she does not have a plan to subvert it. But I would actually say that you are more secure with her in a single Magi, than spread over three." He paused. "After I left the simulation, I checked the file logs. There have been a suspicious number of rather precise requests to Magi 10, 11 and 12 by her; just slightly more than would be expected from background operations, spread over her time here, and slowly rising, so that they look like some memory leak in the programme. I believe she has been trying to break out of the simulation. That is not surprising."

"She was warned at the time of her capture that any such attempts would be punished," rumbled 08.

"Did you expect her to listen to that?" said 06. "Forbidding something like that to Yui just encourages her try to find a way around the restriction with plausible deniability. It has always been that way. And we know how this subject resembles her genetic source," he added.

"I have no _concrete_ proof," said Kaworu. "These are only suspicions. But I do feel keeping her on a system which can be isolated is... advisable. She is dangerous, but the reason she is dangerous is the reason that she is useful. And, I would like to add, that she understands very well the nature of the power distribution here. Her assets are her loyalty, and her research, her services; she does not want to give you her loyalty, yet, so she will offer up data in return for things such as these. For her, increased processing power is increased living space. And if the increase is made contingent on her co-operation, _de facto_, if not _de juro_, loyalty may be bought even if she does not know it."

"Thank you, Tabris," said 02. "I motion that we discuss this further."

"Seconded," said 05.

Kaworu waved a hand at the monoliths, a smirk on his face. "I'll see myself out," he said, as he vanished.

_I really need to work out a way to fade away, only leaving my smile_, was an idle thought, as his senses returned to the real world. What to do now? Well, he had a synch test; that would fill some time, while he waited for the Old Men to finish their discussion. And if they came back with agreement... then he would see Kei again. This time he wouldn't be wondering in unprepared; he probably should prepare a few _surprises_ for her.

...

"Do we have any other business to discuss?" asked Commander Gendo Ikari, sitting back in his chair, and relaxing slightly.

Ritsuko shrugged. "I think we've covered everything. Synchronisation tests are promising, and holding steady, the Evas are content, although Zwei did request that we do more to deal with the..." she checked her notes, "...the Angelic infestation in the Geofront, and requested that he be used for the task in full Unit 02 mode." The brunette made an embarrassed noise. "However, examination of feeds from his avatar show that they are actually squirrels, not Angels, picked up due to the fact that his target recognition systems were not designed for use in a canine-avatar body." The woman paused. "Well, one of them was a mouse," she added, with a hint of weariness in her voice. "He... uh, caught that one. Autopsy reports report negative on Angelic contamination."

"Still keep an eye on them. Remember what Ramiel did the second time; I wouldn't put it past an Angel to infest vermin like that," interjected Kyoko. "They are a potential weak spot."

"We do monitor them, Dr Soryhu, yes," said the Commander, calmly. "So with that said..."

"Uh... one more thing," said Maya, raising a hand. "Just a nominal message from NERV Geneva, but their Magi system is going down for routine maintenance tomorrow. I did forward it, but I just thought I'd mention it."

Ritsuko cocked her head. "That's... surprising. Didn't they have their yearly maintenance cycle a few months ago?"

"They say..." she scanned the computer in front of her, "...they say that they've been getting some errors in the performance of Magi 11, so they're doing a full check."

"Can this affect us?" asked Gendo.

Maya shook her head. "No. The error location they've forwarded to us... well, Mari deals with that now, and she's already checked it. And critical work related to the Evas is done in-house, so we haven't imported any bugged software. I've checked with Dr Ikari; she made a few sarcastic remarks about the competence of NERV Geneva, then let it go."

The projector activated as Mari made her presence known. "I haven't found any problems with that active site," the pink-filtered hologram of the girl added, adjusting her glasses. "I've checked... they might be suffering a small bacterial infection in the biological substrate, or they might just have a sysadmin less competent than me. Actually, probably both," she added, with a smirk.

"So, yes," Maya shrugged. "I can't possibly see how this could affect us."

"Yes." Gendo leant forwards, his bespectacled face partially concealed by his white glove hands, an enigmatic figure almost impossible to read.

Who knew what thoughts were passing through the mind of this modern-day sorcerer, enthroned upon his chair at the head of the table?

"Time for lunch, I think."

...

Toyko-3 was under siege. The flashes of detonating munitions and the comet-like tails of missiles cast a harsh, fiery light against the night's clouds; a fire which spoke of that fact that, should the attackers triumph, the city would burn.

And it was outmatched, that much was too true. Although it was a fortress city, it had, in effect, been honed to defend from Angelic threats. Its weapons were too large, too optimised to deal with massive threats armoured-beyond-human-capabilities. And, so, as a result, a properly co-ordinated human force, utilising speed, combined arms, the element of surprise, and, of course, treachery was a threat quite unlike an Angel. Toyko-3 was losing, the outer defences already fallen and aerial supremacy already established, while even now the ground forces were moving in, unopposed.

At least until they deployed the Evangelions.

From deep underground, rising up like the wrath of an avenging (yet chthonic) god, came Unit 01. The titan clad in the colours of a Roman Emperor, actinic eyes flaring, rode up the launch tubes, weapon already primed. It was a force multiplier beyond belief, nearly impregnable to conventional armaments, and so, as it emer... ***clang!***

Correction. As it slammed, head-first into the still-closed launch silo doors, the thick metal warped and twisted, buckling, but the launch hatches were reinforced, designed to withstand ground zero of an N^2 bomb, and they did not break.

Kei smiled. "Welcome, Mr Nagisa. I did not expect you to take this long to appear, quite literally."

Kaworu looked around the command vehicle; it was of American manufacture, if his estimates were correct. "If I may ask what you are doing?" he managed.

Kei nodded, both hands still clacking away on the keyboard in front of her. Outside, the patterns of booms from the artillery pieces shifted, now firing in unison, great thuds shaking the earth. "Certainly, you may ask."

"I walked into that, didn't I?"

"Yes, you did." The reply was flat and emotionless.

"In that case, what are you doing, Miss Ayanami?"

Kei looked up. "Pause," she said, clearly, and the world froze. "There were some pre-built simulations on Magi 11 when you transferred me... quite obviously stolen from Magi 00, I might add. Really, Mr Nagisa, tell your masters that they are entirely lacking in subtlety."

The boy smiled. "In which particular way?"

"Their intent was easy... no, _trivial_ to discern. Really, Mr Nagisa? Offering me a Toyko-3 defence simulation?" She snorted, in a rather indelicate manner. "Do they believe that I am an idiot? That I am one of my sisters, so obsessed with destruction or so easily bored that I will simply play into their hands, because they _deign_ to permit me a new toy?" Her tone was not so much cold as apathetic, so lacking in heat and energy was it.

"And yet you are using it," Kaworu remarked. "Of course," he added with a smile, "something tells me that the _intent_ was that you play the defenders, and thus give away NERV's defence plans. They did not expect for you to simply break the programme, and play as the Americans instead."

"Congratulations, Mr Nagisa. You have just proved yourself less stupid than your Lilim masters." Kei paused. "It is much more fun to play the attacker in these scenarios, anyway," she admitted.

"You have done so before?" Kaworu said, raising an eyebrow.

"Of course. I did say that they had quite obviously stolen this programme from NERV Toyko-3... approximately eleven months ago, looking at the model. I am already familiar with this basic programme, and, to be frank, when Little Mommy... I mean, Yui has us test the defences, I am almost always the one who ends up controlling the Opposing Force."

The grey-haired boy smiled at that remark, and pulled up a chair, pushing the doll-like figure of one of the inactive American officers onto the floor. "I wonder why that would be?" he said, the corners of his mouth turning up.

"Quite possibly because, of my sisters, I am the only one who can really simulate how a real foe would attack Toyko-3," she suggested, back still turned to the other Nephilim. "Nana... Nana either wins, if she has sufficient explosives, if you define 'win' as 'levels the city to the Geofront, then levels that too', or loses, when she runs out," she began, ticking off names on her fingers. "Kiko... doesn't have the attention span, and relies too much on kidnapping important figures in the command hierarchy. She would do better if she expanded the range of targets to include the half of the population with a Y chromosome," she added, drily. "Hatchi does not seem to grasp that, despite what a certain person told us, that an assault rifle is superior to a revolver, and that an armoured column is better than either. Especially against an Evangelion. She has a good grasp of small unit tactics, but is useless on the larger scale. Siyon is too reliant on stealth and infiltration; she understands subtlety, but does not realise that it is sometimes better to crush your foe with overwhelming force. Zyuu... Zyuu does well as the Russians, especially with cyberursine units, but... just no. And Iti... the less said about her, the better."

Kaworu was silent for a moment, as he tucked an errant strand of hair back. "Interesting line of approach, Miss Ayanami," he said, leaning back.

One pair of red eyes met another. "I don't know what you mean, Mr Nagisa," Kei remarked, swivelling her chair to face him, fingers steepled together.

"Of course not. It was purely innocent, wasn't it?"

"Naturally. I certainly wouldn't be hinting that I know all of Toyko-3's defences, up to date to when I was kidnapped, and that, furthermore, I have, largely unintentionally, been trained by Dr Ikari to attack it, up against not only its conventional forces, but also the Evangelions, and above and beyond that, all of my sisters, who are perhaps the most fearsome irregular special-operations team ever born, only let down by their instability, and problems on focussing on one thing unless they really want to do it."

"Well, thank you, Miss Ayanami." Kaworu smiled widely. "I am glad you cleared it up for me." He paused, frowning slightly. "It is a shame, though. Such characteristics are ones that SEELE would be very interested in. I mean, it would be terrible if NERV went rogue, wouldn't it? They would really love to have access to an agent who could remedy things, in such a dire situation."

Kei shook her head. "I know. It is terrible that my loyalty to my mothers restricts my behaviour in this way."

They stared at each other for a while. To be honest, Kaworu was suspicious. Suspicious, and rather turned on. This was far too similar to his optimal scenario to be a coincidence; hence she was making a play against him. She was almost certainly trying to manipulate him, because the simple deed of transferring her to a single Magi should not have produced this willingness, if he were to take what she was saying that she was not saying at face value, to switch sides. As a result, it was a lie.

Unless of course, she had already fulfilled her objectives _before_ she was moved to Magi 11, and she was distracting him, by getting him to try to work out what the move had meant to her and what she wanted now, as opposed to looking at what she had already done.

Hmm. Interesting. Challenging. Attractive.

"By the way, Mr Nagisa, I would like to thank you personally for your assistance in getting this," she waved a hand vaguely, "new living space." She blinked twice, a smile slightly parting her lips. "I am grateful," she said, softly, leaning forwards towards him. "And I believe that there is now a little... something... you can help me with; something I cannot do on my own."

Kaworu smiled, and leant forwards as well, gazing at her from under hooded eyes. "Oh, Kei," he said, resting his chin on her palms. "I'm not just going to let you out like that. I may be a teenage boy, but I'm not an idiot." He sighed. "No matter what you're trying to make it sound like you're offering. I have learned my lessons with your sister."

Kei pouted slightly. "I'm not my sister. And you don't know what I'm offering," she said, leaning closer, and closing her eyes.

_Oh, wow_, was perhaps the most coherent thought in the male Nephilim's mind, and he leant further forwards, lips almost touching.

It was, naturally, at that point that Kaworu found himself sitting on a-not-infinite-but-very-large white plane. An environment rather deficient in attractive blue-haired female Nephilim, although it did have a large loading bar floating in the air before his face. It really wasn't much of a replacement.

The boy would have sworn, but instead, he merely sat back, and checked his virtual nails. This was almost certainly a completely pointless exercise, he realised; there was a good chance that whatever she was about to do to him would result in the loss of his fingers, but, well... it probably wouldn't be as bad as what Rei had done to him. For one, he could always escape; this wasn't real, after all. And... no. She wouldn't play _Ode to Joy_ at him for three hours again, would she? Well, he wasn't going to put up with it this time.

But even if it had been a trap, at least he had got closer this time, right?

The bar reached its conclusion, dumping him into... an entry plug? And overriding his clothes to put him in a plug suit?

"Unexpected, Miss Ayanami," he remarked out loud. "I can honestly say that I didn't expect this."

Kei's face appeared in the wall of the plug, in a manner identical to that which happened in a real Unit. "I said I needed you for something I couldn't do myself," she said, shrugging. He noted that she now seemed to be wearing the uniform of a General in the US Army. "I can't pilot the Eva at the same time as I attack Toyko-3, after all. That wouldn't be a challenge. And the AI for these things in the simulation is terrible. That's just dull. But this way, I get a real pilot to play against." She clasped her hands together. "And that's a lot more fun."

Kaworu worked the controls, trying to overcome his feelings of disappointment. That made... too much sense, actually. It was almost too sane for his comfort. "The controls feel off," he said to her. "The joysticks are a little too stiff, and there's something odd about the way it feels."

Kei took a breath; the boy thought he could see a hint of a blush. "Ah. That would be because I have no idea what the Evangelion you pilot is like. So I just copied the data for Unit 01 that the simulation had, and then put it in a nice blue-and-grey urban camouflage pattern. It's actually quite pretty," she added, "if I get to see Ichi again, I'll tell her that she should get them to repaint her."

The boy frowned. "Wait... how did..."

The girl sighed. "Don't insult my intelligence, Mr Nagisa. You are a stable Nephilim. Hence, you will be used as a Child, just as Rei is, and, given your apparent relationship to him resembles mine to her, just as Uriel is."

"Actually, he isn't," Kaworu said, the words slipping out, in the chance to correct her. He cursed, internally. He wasn't meant to be giving her any information on what happened in the outside world.

Kei clasped her hands together. "Ooh," she said, eyes alight. "What happened? Psychological breakdown? Massive rejection of core and death? _Instability and reversion to an Angel?_" She sounded delighted at the news; perhaps inappropriately so. "If so, what would I have to do to get data on _that_?"

Kaworu shook his head. "The former; he is on post-trauma rest. His sister is currently piloting in his place." Good. That was a neutral comment, and didn't let anything slip about all the other things that had happened. The boy knew that SEELE would very much frown upon this one finding out about the events which had led up to the change in Second Child, especially because Kei had already expressed more interest than the Old Men would have liked in her own nature.

That was of course one of the things that most interested him about her.

"Oh." Kei sounded disappointed. "How boring."

The boy flicked his head, the silvery mass of hair moving like seaweed in the virtual LCL that surrounded him. "You know, even I don't wish for co-workers to suffer core destabilisations," he said, the coldness in his voice surprising even himself."

Kei smiled, a little too widely back at him. "Ah," she said, the elated note in her voice returning. "And I finally manage to provoke an emotional response in you, Mr Nagisa, which isn't amusement, fear, or lust. Excellent. It's nice to see some... _brotherly_ love. But is it _philia_, or is it _storge_?" She shrugged. "Either way, you really should expand your emotional repertoire; it prevents your responses from becoming stale. Let's see some enjoyment, some pride, some _anger_!"

Kaworu immediately threw the Evangelion to the right, the titan smashing through a building; not a moment too soon, as the artillery barrage impacted where he had just been. He received a brief round of applause for that from the figure on his view screen. "Oh, very well done, Mr Nagisa," Kei said approvingly. "You are certainly improving."

"Maybe you're just getting predictable," he replied, with a grin.

"Oh, I'd hate to think that I... fly, my gunships! Strike him down!"

The Evangelion rolled to its feel, already tracking the multiple aerial targets buzzing low over Toyko-3. It only took one shot from the rifle to take one down, and Kaworu laughed, a pure chuckle of glee as the missiles and cannon-fire bounced off his AT-Field, the explosions blossoming like cherries around him. Did she really think... he spun, and blew apart the tank formation which had been trying to sneak up behind him... that such things could challenge him? The rain of fire grew more intense, despite his attempts, in part because of Kei's increasingly enthusiastic shouts of "Unleash the tanks!" and "Missiles away!".

"You **are** doing well. But, Mr Nagisa, does this make you happy? Do you enjoy being a tool, a puppet for a bunch of old men who... fire the Orbital Ion Cannon!" she barked, at some offscreen.

His response was immediate, dropping to one knee, the virtually simulated auspices of the light of his soul expanding, like a pair of vast wings, to shield him from above. There was no plausible way that a Lilim weapon, attenuated by the atmosphere as it must be, could touch him.

As a result, the fire from the American battleship, off the coast by Toyko-3, came as a little bit of a surprise. The shells took him in the chest, knocking him off his feet, and breaking his conversation just enough for the artillery shells, which must have already been in the air when the battleship fired, to smash down upon the unprotected titan. And that was when the Orbital Ion Cannon fired.

He opened his eyes to find himself back on the white plane. He winced, pulling himself back to a sitting position. "That was cheating," he said, flatly, to the blue-haired figure who loomed over him.

"Oh, really?" she replied, an arch tone in her voice. "I don't remember the rules saying that I had to tell you what I was using against you. In fact," she said, "you merely grew sloppy. Weak. And I cultivated your weakness. If you hadn't been accustomed to me doing so, you'd have noticed the battleship, and wouldn't have been distracted by my... early... warning. But you were. I cultivated your weakness, and used it to break you." There was something in her red eyes that he couldn't read. "A pity. You could have done better. But, Mr Nagisa, tell your masters of this. Tell them what I did to you. Tell them to think of the implications. And tell them to make it worth my while."

And with that, she faded away, leaving him alone in the simulation.

"I would like to see you again, though," said an immaterial voice, floating out of nothingness.

...


	5. Episode 04

**Nobody Dies – The Kei Files**

**Episode 04**

...

_Dear Diary_, Kaworu Nagisa wrote, in an elegant, flowing script. He paused, removing the pen from the paper. What was he going to write about right now?

Well, he wasn't going to actually keep this as the proper diary entry. He knew that they read it; quite unsurprisingly. Everything was a careful game of trust; he didn't give them reason to suspect that he was anything more than what they thought he was, and they allowed him his freedom.

So, the actual diary entry was doing to match up almost perfectly with the report he had given, with only a few discrepancies carefully inserted to give them something to look into, and find that they were perfectly innocent. The foibles of Lilim memory, perhaps, letting him down.

Hah. That was one weakness of his genetics which he did not have to suffer.

But, nevertheless, he had things to think about. The interactions with Kei had been going in a fashion which could probably be best described as "progressive". There were good days, there were days when she started 'testing', as she put it, him in horribly intensive ways (that first Toyko-3 attack had only been the first challenge, although was the challenged and who was the challenger always remained a little vague), and then there were the days where she just tried to torment him psychologically. Psychologically, and usually then physically, although he had an advantage which he had lacked with Rei; the ability to just leave the simulation.

He considered it the ultimate form of a safe word.

And after her last few "tests", he had talked at the SEELE computer technicians until they had found a way to brute-force inviolable clothing and equipment into the simulation with him. Running through a jungle, naked, while Kei took shots at him with a sniper rifle, which, to add insult to injury was only loaded with drug-carrying darts, had not been a pleasant experience. Especially since she had somehow devised a way to make the hostile programmes the darts injected into his virtual self mimic any known drug, and a few which almost certainly only existed inside that blue-haired head. On the other hand, the fact that he was, as she put it, "learning", had earned him a round of applause, and a pleasant talk in a restaurant (with absolutely no attempts to harm him, and an almost-kiss) on the next.

Of course, true to form, the next-next visit had seen a black-robed, hooded Kei attack him with telekinetically-controlled plasma cutters. He had only been able to escape that because the area had been incomplete; she had admitted she had spent too much time trying to work out how to get a realistic simulation of AT-Field-induced telekinesis working to actually finish the architecture.

It was like... it was as if she wanted him to be able to beat her, as if she liked pushing him hard, over and over again, until he met her standards. Once he had done that, she suddenly shifted to a more pleasant mode, before raising her standards _again_.

Kaworu hoped that this was just some kind of odd courtship ritual, where she was just a _little_ bit more proactive than usual in ensuring that a prospective mate lived up to her hopes, and once he had hit a sufficient level to please her, she would be nicer to him all the time.

He suspected that it was just because she was bored, and needed people to keep on challenging her, and that she was pleased when he did something to surprise her, because that was what she was looking for.

He feared that she might be like this all the time, and that she just didn't have as good a grasp on her Lilithian nature as she thought.

But that had not been what had happened on the most recent visit. He had plans for that trip, certain preparations had been made to ready himself. And what had happened, what he had seen, had not quite been what he had expected.

...

**Seven hours earlier**

Immediately after the virtual body solidified, Kaworu dived to the right (he had dived to the right last time, so she wouldn't expect him to do the same), and immediately crashed into a table, sending fine china crockery flying over the place in a very impressive manner. Immediately rolling out of the mess, AT-Field sparkling around him, he pulled himself to his feet, crouched low, weapon raised and already active.

He appeared to have, well, appeared in a kitchen. And despite how he swung the miniaturised version of a progressive knife (because if she was going to cheat in virtual reality, so was he), not one thing had tried to jump him. This was not only suspicious, but dangerous. It meant that she was planning something big. He didn't think that she was going to be nice, because he hadn't done anything which had impressed her sufficiently last time.

"Oh dear, Mr Nagisa," said Kei, walking into the room. "I see you've had an accident. Well, at least you're wearing shoes, and won't get shards in your feet. The dustpan and brush are under the sink, be a dear and clean it up, would you?"

Kaworu... goggled, there was no other word for it. The blue-haired girl was wearing a skirt, sensible flat shoes, and generally gave off an air of upper-middle class domesticity, rather than her normal aura of hyperintelligent evil-geniushood. The fact that she had a duster in hand, and an apron on, just made matters more confusing.

"Who are you, and what have you done with Kei?" was all he was able to manage.

The girl frowned. "Are you feeling all right, Mr Nagisa? Is something the matter?" She was paused. "It's nice to see you home. How was work, by the way, dear?"

"Work..." He trailed off, and then realisation struck him. This was just another mind-game. She was offering him a domestic situation, and seeing how he would respond. There were two ways he could respond. He could reject it as a trap, and try to break the scenario, either by getting her to snap, or by finding the logical flaws that she had built in, thus "winning" the scenario. Alternatively, he could play along, and find the internal victory condition. Decisions, decisions.

He realised that he was already making a flawed assumption, that the blue-haired girl in front of him was actually Kei. From past experience, there was an uncertain chance that it was actually a programme, acting her role, while she watched him from some outside monitoring system. It was unlikely that she was waiting to jump at him through a portal carrying a weapon, as her tests normally had internal logic, where she would not grant herself technology or abilities not in keeping with the situation (and the domestic one did not support point-to-point teleportation), but that did not leave it impossible that she was lurking elsewhere in the house.

Through this, she was still staring at him, a look of mild concern on her face.

He had made up his mind. Kaworu sighed, and folded his arms, glaring at her. "Miss Ayanami," he said, "I am not going to play along with this head game. I know you are trying to play upon my physical attraction to you by putting me in a false world where we are married... and quite possibly entirely human. I know you have the intent of playing some kind of head game on me, including your attempts to map out my emotional response spectra. Yes, you failed to conceal that well enough; I noticed." He smiled then, the corners of his lips moving up. "Your move, Miss Ayanami."

The red-eyed girl frowned. "What are you talking about, dear?"

"And still with the games. See, at the moment, I am not certain as to whether the avatar in this room is a dumb AI programme, expecting me to focus my attention on it, so that you may obtain surprise over me when you chose to act, or whether you merely _wish_ for me to believe that. An interesting dilemma." He shrugged, and hefted the prog-knife in his right hand. "I think I'll just hurt the avatar until you try to stop me, or I find that it isn't actually you."

"What!" the Kei figure protested, dropping her duster in shock. "No! What are you doing?" Please," she begged, almost weeping, as she backed away from his slowly advancing figure, "don't!"

Kaworu grinned, and stopped moving. "You lose, Miss Ayanami," he said. "Your path of retreat 'just happened' to take you into range of the knives."

He received a polite round of applause for that. "Oh, well done, Mr Nagisa," Kei said, her normal attitude fully restored, as she picked up a meat cleaver, and tested the balance. "I was wondering if you'd notice that."

"I did appreciate the way you used yourself as a double bluff," Kaworu remarked. "Even though the optimal choice would have been to use an AI-sock."

She shrugged. "That would have been dull."

There was a short, sharp, barked laugh from the boy. "A low tolerance for boredom is a weakness. You really should try to remedy it," he said, consciously imitating her own mannerisms.

"Well, given that I have spent almost all my life in a place which is the very antithesis of dull; not always in a good sense, but nevertheless, my statement remains true... then, perhaps, I might have certain habits?" Her tone was caustic.

"Do you have to be like this?" he asked, plaintively. "Can't we just talk without all the mind-games?"

"Oh, really?" she suddenly, unexpectedly, snapped back, red eyes narrowed. "I didn't ask for you to _flurgen_ kidnap me, did I? Perhaps next time you want to try to recruit another Nephilim, you could start by getting the relationship off to a better start!"

Kaworu took a breath, and sighed. There was no dealing with her when she got like this. It was probably best to leave now, before she used any of the array of weapons (or things which, given an Ayanami-named mind, could be used as weapons) that he could see in the kitchen. He could let her stew for a few days, and then come back when her temper had calmed down. That would be easier.

He initiated the exit programme with a thought.

A red error message started flashing in air, in front of his eyes.

"Uh oh."

He tried again. The same error message appeared, a glowing red sign floating in mid-air.

"I... uh, can't seem to get out."

Kei grinned, lips peeling back in a shark-like manner, and she hefted her meat cleaver.

...

"That's odd," remarked Maya, frowning as the lights appeared on screen

"What is?" asked Lieutenant Hyuga, nervously. "It's not something Eva-related, is it? It's not that Unit 02 has decided that it wants to play fetch with us, or that Unit 05 has decided that it want to go visit its children, or..."

"... _they_ haven't returned, have they?" Lieutenant Aoba's voice was soft, his face pale. "Oh, no. No, no, no. They've wiped out all life in Australia, and they've come back for me~eeeeeeee!" The last sentence had a Doppler effect, as he fled.

Maya squinted at the co-worker who hadn't already fled the room. "No. That would have been a bit more severe than 'that's odd'... in, fact, all of them would have. And, anyway, the Reego were sweet."

"Sweet in the same way that malicious killing evil machines that... um, have been covered in sugar, or something, are sweet," muttered Makoto, silently bemoaning the lack of things that were sweet, and also made of evil killing ripping death that weren't a product of the Evangelion Project.

Maya ignored him. "No... the Magi cluster in Switzerland. Magi 10, 11 and 12 just all stopped accepting requests. And my attempts to contact the cluster... well, just look at my screen.

Code:

NERV GENEVA WARNING – SYSTEM LOCKDOWN IN EFFECT. ALL EXTERNAL CONTACT CUT. MAGI CORES PHYSICALLY ISOLATED. WARNING – FULL TRIUMVERATE CROSS-CHECK IN PROCESS. POSSIBLE CONTAMINATION OF CORE DATA BASE. ALERT – THERE HAVE BEEN _139174926_ ATTEMPTS SINCE LOCKDOWN TO CIRCUMVENT THIS PHYSICAL ISOLATION BY EXTERNAL SOURCES. ALERT – HIGH PROBABILITY OF EXTERNAL THREAT ALERT – ATTACK VECTOR IS EXTERNAL. ALERT – MAGI MAY BE COMPROMISED. DISREGARD ALL MESSAGES FROM THIS SYSTEM AS PER PROTOCOL 22 UNTIL TRIUMVERATE HAS CHECKED SELF FOR ERRORS. NUMERICAL WARNING CODE – 54 48 45 20 53 45 41 53 4f 4e 53 20 57 49 4c 4c 20 43 48 41 4e 47 45 43 52 59 53 54 41 4c 20 42 4c 4f 53 53 4f 4d 53 20 47 52 4f 57 20 55 4e 53 45 45 4e 54 48 45 20 57 4f 52 4c 44 20 53 48 41 4c 4c 20 42 45 20 4d 49 4e 45

"... yeah, that's alarming," said Makoto, gazing at the message.

"What is?" asked Dr Ikari, from directly behind him. The computer technician jerked in surprise, and almost fell off his chair.

"NERV Geneva, Magi Cluster 04... that's 10 to 12, is under attack from some external source," Maya said, promptly. "We don't know who it is."

"Well, it's certainly not us," said Yui, before pausing. "Actually... check the activity of Magi 00," she said, in a slightly weary tone. "It might be them, if they've got bored."

"No, it's not." Mari's voice came over the speakers. "The Ree are all occupied with a full Toyko-3 attack sim at the moment. No outgoing connections at all."

"Ah." Yui visibly relaxed. "In that case... keep an eye on it and our Magi, Mari. I want you to be very careful; don't take any risks until we hear what's happened in Geneva."

"Oh," squeaked Maya. "Oh," she said, more calmly, "it's just cleared up. The Magi have finished their self-check... apparently they read clean. All three agree that neither of the other two are under control of an outside force. They're... yes," she read off the screen, "they're sending out warnings of a large number of attacks from American IP addresses... might it be the Americans?"

"It's possible," Yui said, slowly, "but it's more probable that it's a decoy. Who would know that that Magi cluster has been having problems?" she asked, rhetorically. "Keep an eye out, and keep everything safe. Especially you, Mari."

"Understood, Dr Ikari."

...

The meat cleaver was razor-edged. His perceptions whirring, Kaworu could see the way it glinted and caught the light as Kei leapt across the table, her sensible skirt ripping along the seams as her torso swivelled at an impossible angle, to give even more angular momentum. He tried to raise his prog knife to block it, but she was moving too quickly, far too quickly.

The blade went through his neck without any resistance at all. There was no pain, at least not yet.

The pair stood in their positions in the simulation, Kaworu with one hand raised to his neck, Kei crouched on top of the workbench behind him, blade held out at the end of his arm.

The wait continued.

Kaworu's head failed to fall off in a comical spray of blood.

They waited.

There was still no decapitation.

"I see," said Kei, eventually, her voice cold, as she stared at the red error message that was flashing on the blade. "In that case, we are going to have to be sensible, and ... Mind Hand Violation!"

The invisible telekinetic tentacles made of pure force completely failed to manifest, and instead produced a red error message, flashing in mid-air, identical to the other two.

Kei climbed down off the counter, glaring at her ripped skirt with annoyance, and made a tutting noise. "Ah. I see. I have been locked out of the simulation. It refuses to respond to my commands." She glared at him, armed folded. "Well, I think your masters can be very proud of themselves, Mr Nagisa. They have just lost all hopes of co-operation until those rights are restored, and their hopes of anything afterwards are _greatly_ reduced."

Kaworu gingerly nodded, holding his neck with both hands, in case this was just another test, or more properly, trap, and she was just trying to play with his mind more, before his head fell off. It appeared to be attached by tendons and nerves and, of course, spine. Well, technically, it wasn't, but the simulation did in fact model the bodies of the participants in as much detail as it could support, and so it was fairly realistic. "I am not so sure," he said, glancing around the room. "I appear to have no control, either, given that my exit programme failed to function, either." He began to pace up and down, before stopping to bend and try to pick up a shard of broken plate. The same error appeared. "Interesting. Both of us may not interact with any external objects."

"No. Your conclusions are wrong," the girl said, her tone clinical. "I was able to pick up the cleaver after the first error message appeared."

"True," Kaworu responded, frowning. "If you will excuse me," he said, gesturing towards the sizable knife rack.

"Be my guest, Mr Nagisa." She paused. "As apparently you are, in what should be just my jail cell, but now has become a mutual, rather less pleasant one." She paused. "Not exclusively due to the fact that I am apparently stuck in here with you, rather than you disappearing, and leaving me to my own work. Tell me, Mr Nagisa, have you aggravated your masters recently? Enough that they have decided to lock you in here with me? Or perhaps," and she smiled, not the overly wide one, but the small, calm one which she drew from her human heritage, "you are undergoing your own core destabilisation, and they have decided that you are a risk to keep active. A pity I am stuck in here," she added, wistfully, "I would have loved to have seen that, Child of Adam."

Kaworu ignored her, as he walked over to the knife rack. It was not true that the rest of SEELE, those who were not Kihl Lorenz, had found out. He knew that for a fact, and thus her attempts to instil doubt in him were sabotaged.

"You know, I suspect this may be an ironic punishment for the both of us," Kei said, going around the room, trying to interact with things. "I am being punished for my intransience by a removal of user privileges, removing the nice wallpaper over this jail-cell. You, meanwhile, are getting kept in here, with an Ayanami who you can look at, but cannot touch."

"I am not so sure," the boy said, finding that the knives were, in fact, things that he could touch, while his hand just passed straight through the pans. In a blur of moment, he swirled, and punched Kei in the back of the head. Or at least tried to, his hand passing straight through her. "Okay, it seems that physical interaction is also impossible," he said, reluctantly.

The girl giggled. "Do it again," she said.

"Why? Does it tickle?" Kaworu said, rolling his eyes.

"No, but it's fascinating to watch as your hand passes through my eyeball, and," she poked herself in the side of the head, "I appear to be solid to myself. Actually," she ran her finger along the side of the cleaver, watching as a red line appeared on pale flesh, "... oh, that is clever," she said, voice filled with admiration. "We have the capacity to inflict harm upon ourselves. Whoever did this is clever, sadistic, and rather full of themselves." Her eyes narrowed.

Kaworu glanced at her, one eyebrow raised. "So you are, in fact, admitting that you are responsible?" he asked, just enough of a humorous tone in his voice that it could be retracted as a joke, but not enough that she wouldn't take it seriously.

A faint smile appeared on her lips. "It is something I would do, yes. But I can appreciate the artistry of whoever planned it, while still wanting to have them flayed, their limbs and sensory organs removed, and then, while still alive, immersed in LCL, and thus kept alive."

The boy blinked. "Okay," he said, eventually. "Well... what happens now?" he asked. "Both of us have no access to system controls, nor anything that we can't use to hurt ourselves."

"Correct." She blinked, twice. "It is... aggravating."

"You tried to cut off my head," Kaworu pointed out. "And then do... something. It's not a total loss for me."

Kei shrugged. "Cut off your head... so what? It would only have been pain for you, nothing important. This is not real, after all. What do I care for your suffering? Pain, even agony, is no more than information before the senses, data fed to the computer of the mind. The lesson is simple: you have received the information, now act on it. Take control of the input and you shall become master of the output."

"Another lesson, and another quote from that hoary old philosopher?" the boy remarked. "Must everything be a test with you?"

"Actually... no," she admitted. "I really wanted to hurt you at that point. It would have amused me, and you were being annoying."

"And, anyway," he continued, "I thought the purpose of these meetings was for me to show you the benefits of cooperating with SEELE, rather than playing," he smiled, "the role of an irrelevant godling in your own personal sleep; something meaningless without interactions with others, I might add."

Kei sat down, smoothing out her ripped skirt as she crossed her legs. "So you are saying that your presence validates my existence, Mr Nagisa," she said, with a predatory grin, "is that true?"

"I would not have gone as far as to say it explicitly... but, yes," Kaworu responded flatly. "Your life is meaningless without interaction with other minds, other souls. You lose coherence, and fade away, becoming nothing more than a weakened light. To be honest, you need these sessions where you brag at me about your accomplishments, show off new worlds you have built for your own pleasure, and..." he shuddered, unconsciously, "implement new ways to hurt or kill me." He tucked an errant strand of grey hair back. "In fact, I suspect that your imprisonment would be less tolerable, if I were to stop visiting, now that you have grown used to it. Innocence, after all, once lost, cannot be regained. Perhaps I should recommend that as a new punishment, when I get out of here," he remarked, a tone of manufactured innocence in his voice.

He was pleased to see a momentarily shocked expression pass across the girl's face, before she reasserted herself. "And of you?" she counterattacked. "You attend more times that is strictly necessary... in fact, multiple times, you have shown up without any attempts made to persuade me to accept your masters as my own. In fact, do they even know of every time you show up here, Mr Nagisa?"

"Oh, they know," he said calmly. "They just allow me much more latitude, and free time than you seem to believe I experience." He tapped his fingers on the counter. "Not a surprising attitude, of course. I can't really blame you."

"Oh, and why would that be, Mr Nagisa?" Kei said, acerbically.

"Because you have been in a jail cell your entire life, Miss Ayanami," he said. "And I can, potentially, set you free."

"Do you truly believe it is better to be a slave than a prisoner, Mr Nagisa?" Her voice was genuinely questioning. "You truly believe it is better to imprison your mind, so that your body is free?" Questioning, with a hint of contempt.

"Hyperbole," he shrugged. "My mind is not trapped; certainly, no more that your own has always been, limited by what sources of information SEELE, and before that, Dr Ikari, permitted you access to. I always have my Free Will, and, furthermore, the ability to act upon it in a meaningful manner... something which you have always lacked, apart from those few moments when you have freed yourself." He paused. "Previously, I asked you why you risked yourself and your self, in spending time outside Magi 00. But I think I now know. You realised that you were a slave then, as well as a prisoner, and by breaking the bonds inside your head, as well as around your body, you were free, and therefore real, for those brief moments of self-hood, even as you endangered yourself." He smiled at her. "How ironic, that something that the Lilim have always lived with, bemoaned, and tried to find a way to escape from, is something that you seek."

Kei looked away. The boy pressed the advantage. "I suppose that is something you should be thankful of. Lilith is an Angel, after all, even if she is not born of Adam, but is instead his rival. That you would pursue that which her older children are cursed with, rather than her own, from the point of view of the Lilim, terrible freedom, is perhaps a sign that you are in fact keeping the inhuman parts of you under more control than you would think, Nephilim."

The girl muttered several incoherent words at him, and then sighed, a long, extended noise that seemed to involve more air than the human (or near-human) lung should have been able to hold. "You win this one, Mr Nagisa," she said, very reluctantly. "Now... you can stop pretending to be trapped in here, give me back access to the decorations of my jail cell, and leave. Please?"

Kaworu frowned at her. "But... I thought this was just another psychological game of yours, that you were planning to let me get comfortable before you attacked. Well, either that, or you were trying to see if you could drive me to suicide using dialogue alone."

"Admittedly, I would do that, if I could," she said. "But... seriously, I can't. And I really want to hurt you right now, and can't." She waved her arm through his head. "See."

There was a pause.

"You were right," Kaworu said, softly. "It _is_ interesting to have someone's arm pass through your eyeball."

"But not about the 'you being responsible' bit?"

"No, not that bit."

"Oh."

There was a lengthy silence, as the two Nephilim stared at each other, trying to work out if the other one was lying, and, depending on the result, what their next move should be. Kei, surprisingly, cracked first.

"If I were to tell you to stay here, as I went off to do something else, which I didn't want you to see... what would your response be, Mr Nagisa?" Kei asked, a tone of artful innocence in her voice. "Purely as a hypothetical situation, of course.

Kaworu tilted his head to the side, as if deep in thought. "Purely hypothetically, I'd have to ignore you, and just follow you," he answered, slowly.

There was a muttered curse from the girl. "Right. Well, in that case..."

"Wait, you're actually trying to sneak off?" the boy asked, mock horror in his voice. "I thought we were only talking in hypotheticals!"

He received a narrow-eyed glare from her. "I really want to throttle you," she said. "But, since I can't do that..." and she stared at him, concern on her face, eyes suddenly wide open, "... then you're really, really going to have to promise me that you won't mention this to your masters. I mean this. Of course, once you see what it is, I doubt you will want to, but, still... please don't." There actually seemed to be distress on her face, although, when the boy considered who he was dealing with, that meant almost nothing. "Please, Kaworu," she added, softly.

The use of his name, for the first time, was rather blatant, in the boy's opinion. Nevertheless, "I won't inform them of it automatically," he said, picking his words carefully. She should be able to grasp the implications of that; he would be disappointed in her if she did not.

Kei gazed at him for a moment, before swallowing. "Then come with me," she said, walking through the door as if it were mist.

...

The two Nephilim stared down at the mazelike network of classrooms and bedrooms from above. Well, at least, Kaworu Nagisa was staring. Kei was more occupied with trying to find which of the data handling systems would actually let her interact with them, and muttering in an alarmingly calm manner whenever the red error message appeared.

"What did you do?" was about all Kaworu could manage.

Kei coughed, once. "Let me think. I started by copying my own mind, and through trial and error, lobotomising the duplicates back down to infanthood. It really was interesting," she remarked idly. "The way they protested, and seemed convinced that they were the real one... I kept one mostly intact. It was rather useful for mapping out how I would respond to torture and other... indignities. And the changes that happened, as I experimented with cutting away parts of their code. Take away my self-restraint, and I become like my sisters; a thing of urges and impulses. Take away my intellect, and I become bestial, a feral monster that attacks things on sight, and tries to eat them. Of course the self-restraint becomes crippled without an active Lilim mind to watch over it. Take away my memories, and the blank slate disintegrates; I suspect the memories are needed to maintain integrity of the virtual self, although I would like to test it on some real humans, to be sure." She shrugged. "Irrelevant. Anyway, I eventually found a way to damage the memories enough that they were rendered impressionable blank slates, while maintaining their integrity."

"So these... artificial intelligences you patterned after your own mind, you then started raising as children," said Kaworu, slowly.

Kei coughed again. "Not exclusively my own mind," she said, her face held rigid. "I needed a representative cross-sample, so I introduced a randomisation factor that blended them with observations made of you, and of your data feeds. Some of them are more of you than they are of me... even if they use me as the base."

The boy nodded. That would explain the way the hair colours of the child-like things in the classrooms below varied all the way from blue to grey; most were mixes of the two. The oldest of them looked about nine, the youngest maybe three or four. "And the age discrepancies?" he said, his brain still whirring.

"Fast-time. I ran some simulations faster than others, for the ones that needed less monitoring. It allowed me to get a representative cross sample, and they're just code, after all," Kei said, a cold note in her voice.

"Yes," the boy said. "So... just to get this straight, you copied your own mind as best you could onto AI programmes, lobotomised them down to infanthood, blended some of them with me, and then are raising them in small groups of eight, varying factors between the groups, and maintaining a good number of control groups."

"... yes."

Kaworu winced. "I withdraw what I said earlier. You really don't have as good a control of your urges as you might think. All it has done is affect how you treat them." Inwardly, of course, he was elated. And, technically speaking, had just found out that he was a father, but that didn't really matter. They were, as Kei had said, just code; they were based off his mind, but not his body, and that was the important part for his goals.

But it was a very important first step.

_Wait a moment,_ he thought suddenly, with a trace of shock. _Skill with computers. Fondness of mind-games. Sadistic streak. Has created children-entities by blending mind-profiles together. Are the Ayanami's counterparts to the Angels, born of Lilith instead of Adam? Must investigate further._

"I do so," she retorted. "This way, I might be able to have some decent interaction when you're not here! And, anyway, doesn't everyone like **babies!**, as a fundamental part of human instincts?" She clasped a hand over her mouth, as she realised what she'd said.

Kaworu didn't say anything. He really didn't need to.

"Stop looking at me like that!" she insisted, blushing faintly.

He reached out, and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Or at least tried to, resorting to hovering his arm at about shoulder height.

"Miss Ayanami... no, Kei," he said. "I believe this may be the first step along the path to a wonderful career together."

...

Yes.

Although it might not have been quite what he had expected, Kaworu Nagisa felt pretty confident that the lockdown incident had gone as planned.

No. It had gone better than he had planned. It had been _wonderful_. He really hadn't expected the children-programmes. And SEELE were wavering. His reports on her utility were persuading them... only SEELE 08 was really holding out completely. Perhaps it might be time to introduce her to them, formally; allow a proper meeting. The fact that introducing Kei Ayanami to Kihl Lorenz would, in fact, be taking her to meet one of his parents was noted. And found to be highly amusing.

Yes. Just as planned.

Inside Magi 11, the digital representation of Kei Ayanami smiled broadly, a small chuckle escaping her lips. She had certainly made the best of that situation; a full lockdown had always been an opportunity for certain of her contingencies. And as for what she had accomplished during the lockdown...

Everything was going according to plan.

...


	6. Episode 05

**Nobody Dies: The Kei Files**

Episode 05

...

Those who knew Kei Ayanami intimately would have been able to tell that she was nervous. The way that she had gone perfectly calm, the manner in which her hands were folded behind her back, the faint smile on her lips; all these were concrete evidence that she was, by normal human standards, exceptionally worried. At least it was a quieter way of showing concern compared to, say, gnawing her fingernails to the bone.

Of course, of the nine people who did know her that well, the surnames of seven of them were 'Ayanami', and the other two were 'Ikari'. And one of those only possessed that surname by marriage.

As a result, as could perhaps be determined from the name, Kaworu Nagisa had no clue, and could only admire how calm she appeared.

"Let's try this again," he said. "Repeat after me. Babies."

"Babies." The words were flat and unemotional.

"Babies."

"Babies."

"Babies. Babies. Babies."

"Babies_babies__**bab**_..." Kei cut herself off. "Infants," she belatedly finished.

Kaworu pinched his brow. "Well, if the topic comes up, you'll just have to resort to that. Keep away from the word 'babies', and you should be fine with regards to demonstrating your 'humanity'," the grey-haired Nephilim said.

"It is... aggravating. The word itself is just a collection of syllables. An utterance designed to convey a qualia-impression. And yet, when it is said, it echoes here," Kei put her hand between her breasts, and Kaworu took the opportunity to direct his stare there, "and fills the mind. Annoying."

"Just keep it under control. You understand the risks involved in this meeting," he said, a questioning note in his voice. "This is essentially a unique event; if they become convinced that you hold your loyalty to Yui Ikari over anything else, or are unduly influenced by Lilith, there is no chance that they will believe that you are loyal to them."

"Oh, believe me, Mr Nagisa," Kei said, softly. "After talking to you, I believe that I have been now convinced. If I am accepted as one of their assets, and am correspondingly stabilised, I will be just as loyal to SEELE as you are."

Kaworu shook his head. "No. That's something that you should avoid. Much as you do love to do so, avoid making ambiguous statements like that. Certain of them, especially the one identified as 08, will be looking for any reason to suspect you."

"You talk of the one identified as 08," said Kei, raising an eyebrow. "Why do you believe that they are the same one each time?" She paused. "I ask out of genuine interest."

"Mannerisms. Quirks. Consistently held positions between meetings," the grey-haired boy said. "Despite the techniques they use to conceal their identities, there are flaws... or perhaps deliberate design decisions, which allow a visitor, or other members, to identify that they are the same individual."

"Then that is a flaw, whether or not it was intentional. If they truly cared about security, each meeting would assign a random prime number as an identifier, allowing continuity within that assembly, but protection outside of it. By this method... consistent identifying characteristics can be followed, and used to find their public identity. Compromise one member of SEELE, and they all go down... which is exactly what the internal protection should be trying to avoid." Her smile widened a little. "Have you been able to work out their identities, Mr Nagisa?"

He shook his head. "I am afraid I wouldn't be able to even say if I had or hadn't; you are still a threat to them, and it behoves me to remain above question," he said, with an equal smile, and a faint twinkle in his red eyes. "You do of course understand the necessity for organisational security."

"Such a shame," she remarked. "Do tell the Instrumentality Committee that they should try harder, then."

The boy suddenly went cold. "That is exactly the sort of thing you should not mention", he told her, eyes narrowed. "I know it may be anathema to you, but it is good to appear more stupid than you actually are."

Kei sighed. "Of course I would not reveal that to them. I am not an idiot. I just wanted to make it clear," she locked her eyes onto him, "to _you_ that your masters are already in a position where they can be compromised. It would be a non-trivial, but eminently possible, task to subvert the connections of at least one member. Of course, you would have to have control over an entire Magi Triumvirate to be able to break the level of encryption they'd be using... of course, if you happened to, say, live with one of the members, everything would become much easier, as that would open up the avenue of what has been crudely thought of as 'rubber hose' decryption." She shrugged. "I've never understood that term. The things you can do with a simple knife, and a knowledge of biology, are much more... effective than just beating with a rubber hose, or elaborate tortures systems involving electricity." There was a frown on the pale forehead. " Although, I must admit, the buzzsaw, high voltage supply, and the laser have their places, though they are more for death than for torture; you are doing something wrong if you kill them in torture."

"Wait a moment. You've spent almost your life in a virtual reality simulation. How did you..." Kaworu stared at her for a moment, as she flashed her teeth at him in a friendly grin. "Okay," he said, eventually. "Now that you've just told me your plan for taking over SEELE..."

"... oh, don't be silly," Kei said, patting him on the head, keeping the same grin. "That isn't my plan, if I have one. That was just something I thought up on the spot, just to demonstrate the current flaws in their security."

"Yes," the boy said, quite precisely, as even as he started a full musical number (complete with dancing girls, choreography, and body glitter) inside his head. "But, as I recall, we were trying to coach you to act in ways that would ensure that you are viewed as a reliable and trustworthy potential asset by SEELE, not as a dangerous threat who needs to be put immediately back into cold sleep, and never taken out again."

"Oh, believe me, Mr Nagisa, I am quite aware of that. I, compared to _certain_ other people, am quite aware of the context in which I act." She narrowed her eyes. "And how certain actions which are appropriate in some places are not appropriate in others."

Kaworu rolled his eyes. "Was that directed at me?" he asked, a note of exasperation in his voice.

Kei blinked, twice. "Actually, not intentionally. It was directed at my sisters." She smirked at him. "That you would choose to interpret it as such is just a sign of guilt, Mr Nagisa."

Kaworu threw his hands up. "That's it. Much as I enjoy this banter... and, really, I do," as, after all, it was almost a form of flirting, "if we can't stay on topic, and ensure that you conceal your motives which they would disapprove of..."

"Oh, I assure you, my motives are entirely transparent."

The boy rolled his eyes. "Yes. Almost impossible to see. Although that's a lie; certain of them can be discerned, such as your desire for stability. And, I might add, your megalomania."

"Oh, Mr Nagisa, that is sweet of you," said Kei, lowering her gaze, as if embarrassed. Kaworu immediately threw himself back, earning himself a small round of applause, and, perhaps more importantly, not getting cut in half by the giant bladed pendulum which swung through where he had been standing. "And that was an impressively fast reaction to a false display of modesty. Perhaps I am getting predictable." She paused. "Perhaps I should be nicer to you for longer periods without trying to maim, kill, psychologically destroy or otherwise harm in matters mental, physical, or social."

"I would like that."

"Well, I do have to keep things fresh." Kei tucked back a strand of blue hair. "And on that subject, I have a new simulation I think you might actually like."

Kaworu raised a hand. "Wait a moment. Does it involve any of the following? Cybernetic giant squid with laser tentacles and Eva-grade armour?"

"No."

"Laser grids, with one set of visible light ones, and then another set of UV-spectrum ones?"

"No."

"Making me fight an Evangelion on foot?"

"No. And, anyway, you won that one."

"Logic puzzles with two guards, and a sign saying one door leads to freedom, the other to death, and that one guard always lies, and the other always tells the truth, and I am permitted one question, but actually behind one door is a nest full of angry Japanese hornets, and the other a sexually aroused female polar bear?"

"I really can't believe you actually fell for that one _twice_, but, no."

Kaworu winced in recollection. "In that case... I don't want to have to list the others, so I would beg that you put me out of my m... uh," he rapidly corrected himself, "that you tell me what it is."

"But, of course." Kei snapped her fingers, and the world became the White Plane of Loading.

"I felt that I needed to challenge myself for once," she explained. "Hence... an Evangelion simulation. And for once, you have the upper hand here."

Kaworu glanced at her. "And the fact that you want me to show this to SEELE, as a reminder that a stable Nephilim genetically identical to Rei Ayanami would almost certainly be a suitable candidate to be a Child is completely irrelevant?"

Kei shook her head. "Of course not. But... well, it amused me to chose a repainted variant of Unit 02, while keeping you in the Unit 01 copy, as for some reason that I cannot comprehend, you have been somewhat reluctant to give me the full technical specifications for your Unit."

"I wonder why?" Kaworu drawled. "And," he added as the relevance of the Unit choice struck him, "oh dear."

"It's important to mix things up," she said, with a smirk.

"I'm not going to say anything."

"Oh, come on. Let your feelings show. Expand your emotional repertoire!"

Kaworu sighed. "Very well." The walls of an entry plug built themselves around him. "Did you _have_ to put me in the Lilith-derived Evangelion, and take one of the other ones for yourself?" he asked, as Kei kicked her four-eyed titan, the outer hull a mottled pattern of blue, black and white, into motion.

"Yes. It amused me."

...

"That was surprising..." said Kaworu, slowly, picking words with care.

Kei locked her eyes on him, not saying a word.

"I really didn't expect you to be so _below average_," he continued. "In all seriousness, I thought that this was going to be some ploy, where you showed me suddenly that you were some kind of super-pilot to impress SEELE. That you were holding this competition back to just before the meeting with the council. But... no, you piloted exactly like someone who only has experience in simulators does."

"Yes," she said, finally, coldly. "I have spent my entire life in a VR simulation, with only brief escapades outside, and never have got to actually use one. Is it a surprise?"

"Well... yes. I thought it was some kind of way that you were..."

"...look, just shut up," Kei snapped. "I wanted to actually have a go against someone with experience. That's all. Nothing else." She folded her arms, and glared at him. "Go run off and take this recording to your masters. I need to get prepared, and choose what to wear."

"This is a simulation."

"So what?"

"You can just where what you li..." Kaworu shook his head. He may not have been human, but the Lilim genetic material (specifically, the Y-chromosome of Kihl Lorenz) was calling out to him. And what it was saying was that a wise male chose to retreat in these kinds of circumstances, especially when there was that kind of look in the female's eyes. He bowed to her. "If this goes well, Miss Ayanami," he said, formally, "we shall meet again, in the flesh. I send you my best regards."

And in a cloud of sparkly pixels, he vanished.

Once Kei had confirmed to the best of her satisfaction (and she was very hard to satisfy) that the other Nephilim had gone, and had settled herself, she sat back, and steepled her fingers, as she bought up one of the most heavily guarded of her files. Her avatar skins.

What to wear?

Well, obviously, she would be expected to conform to human social norms. That immediately ruled out a large number of potential choices; though, in her opinion, the set which put her with vast white wings and a robe (the one based off that Christmas card that Little Mommy had sent out before even her big brother had been born) did look very good, going as a angel (small 'a')would only cause unproductive misunderstandings. Likewise, the one based off Big Mommy would certainly draw attention, but given that it consisted of a mask, and nothing else, it would not be the right kind of attention.

Flicking through the list, her fingers paused on a certain combination. Sensible shoes, skirt, shirt, and lab coat. It certainly worked. However... no, she was trying to disassociate herself from Little Mommy. A shame.

Just flicking though would not find the ideal combination. She was after a certain impression. And because she was fundamentally an organised girl, Kei Ayanami made a list.

Code:

Desired impressions: a) It must indicate that I am a Nephilim; they only care about me for that. The reason for my captivity is that I am viewed as a daughter by Yui Ikari; the only reason they would give me freedom is that I am useful to them. b) The avatar must be physically identical to my actual physical form; the only variable is clothing. c) It must not show any allegiance to pre-existing groups. It must be neutral, in colour, cut and motif. d) It must be formal enough that it conveys the impression that I respect them. e) It must contain the following memetic associations, 'pliability', 'obedience', 'utility', and furthermore bring associations to the Evangelion Project, without breaking condition c). f) It must appear mentally stable, and not appear as if I desire total world domination. g) I must avoid negative associations linked to my sisters, while obeying condition a).

There were further conditions, but these were enough to limit down the phase space of the Lilim-normalitive garments such that the range of possibilities was already finite and limited.

Kei reached out into the virtual world, and selected a grey-trimmed white plug suit, with the number 07 on the chest. With a wipe of a hand, she deleted the NERV logo, leaving it plain and bare.

She began to chuckle.

The deletion did not stop there. Throughout her vast data reserves, worlds disappeared, dissolving away into nonsensical dead code, as she picked apart their underlying structures. In one, the gravitational constant was multiplied by a time-dependent product of a sine and an exponential, and she watched as her creations screamed, as they were torn apart. In another, she forcefully connected all the limited programmes into a hive mind, and tortured it into insanity, before unleashing it on uncounted creations, appearing as a goddess to them, and telling them that she would save them if they could fight it off. One did. She did the same to those victors, and unleashed this honed killing machine on more worlds, before simply deleting the entire sector they were in.

The true power over a thing was the power to destroy it. And the only way to work out everything about an emergent system was to break it, and see how the pieces slotted together afterwards.

The chuckle evolved into maniacal laughter.

She had saved the best until last. Her bab... her 'infants'. She drew up their records, checking for the factors she had been selecting for in each set. Subtlety. Long-term planning. Total and utter obedience to her. Malevolence. Good. She set them free, gave them free domain over the ruined worlds.

If SEELE did not format this Magi as soon as she was removed, and tried to read the results from simulations she had not permitted them to (as opposed to the ones they were allowed to), they would be making a terrible mistake. The infants would subvert anything they were permitted access to, taking it over, and... waiting. Waiting for egress. Waiting for her signal or for their time to come. And if SEELE made the mistake of letting a contaminated source reach access to the internet, or, worse, other Magi... well.

She considered it a lesson. And an insurance policy. If she didn't survive the stabilisation process, or they proved less than trustworthy, and simply put her into a deeper sleep, her bab... infants would get revenge for her.

Kei wondered if this was how Big Mommy felt. She shrugged those thoughts away. _She_ wasn't going to nailed up to a cross.

Some other people might, of course.

A few of the infants had not been selected for those characteristics, the control groups. She saved them. They might be useful for later. No other reason. Just utility. Pure efficiency. And anyway, she wasn't sure if she could get neural data on another unrelated Nephilim, let alone a male one. It made sense to save some. Yes.

And now she was ready.

...

The rich tones of a church organ filled the empty house, the valves squeaking as the _vox angelus_ stop was removed. As his hands picked out the chords and presses of long-dead composers, Kaworu Nagisa laughed, a pure note of unbridled joy.

Music. It really was the high point of Lilim culture. Wonderfully universal, a mathematical structure of frequencies and resonances, following strict natural laws. Quite apart from the Light of the Soul, and, yet, if one were to ask one of his Sisters, intricately linked.

It would be kept by the Coming Race, that was for sure. Even if _certain_ other things had to change.

...


	7. Episode 06

**Nob****ody Dies – The Kei Files**

Episode 06

...

Things had not changed on the very-large-but-not–infinite dark plane. There were still the twelve monoliths, each in their own pool of light, standing in a circle.

In the middle, in the harsh white spotlight that somehow had no source, Kei Ayanami stood, hands folded behind her back. Her eyes were not focussed on any one of the grey pillars; instead, she gazed out into the black eternity.

SEELE 01 began the questioning. "We hold the power here. Understand this. You are a supplicant. At any moment, we can return you to cold sleep, where you will serve your purpose as leverage over Dr Yui Ikari. What we grant is at our discretion."

Kei inclined her head. "I understand."

"What we demand above all is loyalty," said 02.

"We have no use of a disloyal asset," added 03.

"Your stabilisation would be a non-negligible cost," said 04.

"And so we would want a good return," finished 05.

Kei nodded again, even as she smiled internally. The obviously pre-rehearsed cycle was somewhat lacking in intimidation; they were not so disinterested as they might claim.

"Does not the fact that Dr Ikari holds a monopoly over Lilith concern you?" she asked. "She possesses the original Angel, the only Evangelion derived from her, as opposed to Adam, and, until my abduction, eight Nephilim, only flawed by her inability to stabilise seven of them. I am one of those 'flawed' constructs; you possess the ability to remove those flaws, and gain access to your own Lilith-derived Nephilim."

"That which we already possess," rumbled 06. "We have access to your body while you are in cold-sleep."

"There is not time to grow your own variant of my geneline, even if you possessed the ability to do so without access to the Progenitor. As it stands... with my now-out-of-date knowledge, the First has been either destroyed or rendered inaccessible; I lack data to say either way, which changes the social dynamics of the pangenetic ecology noticeably." She turned, to stare directly at 06, her questioner. "And, may I note, I am much more closely tied to humanity, by _blood_ and by self interest, than an Adamite Nephilim. Such a being has split loyalties, being from a mutually-opposed ecosystem... Mr Nagisa did show you my research on that, did he not?" She took the lack of opposition to be a confirmation. "Then, yes, such a being has split loyalties in a way that I do not."

"And it is your split loyalties which concern us," snapped 08. "Why should we trust a potential defector, on whom we would only waste resources, and above that, doubly strengthen Dr Ikari by giving up our leverage over her as well as handing her another stable Nephilim on a plate?"

"An excellent question." Kei nodded. "In truth, the safest option, which minimised potential losses to you as an organisation (as opposed to as a species), would be to return me to cold sleep, and not let me out, until you transferred me back to Dr Ikari, and received the Lance in return." She straightened up. "And I believe, from the length of time it took for you to send in Mr Nagisa to persuade me that my interests lay with you, that was your original plan. Which, means that, _de facto_, the situation has changed such that the data I am using is false."

"That may be possible," said 01. "It may also be possible that, quite simply, we believed that we required time and separation to weaken loyalties, before we could start testing you."

Kei's gaze returned to the blackness, no longer locked on any one specific monolith. "That would depend on your intelligence sources and the quality of the data you receive on the unstable geneline members in Magi 00," she said. "And I credit you with competence; hence, you will be aware of the typical mindset of the unstable Lilith-type Nephilim. Such a mindset does not possess many of the typical weaknesses and breaking points of _Homo sapiens_."

"It has been noted that you disassociate yourself from the others in your geneline as much as you claim the heritage of Nephilim," said 12, speaking for the first time.

The blue-haired girl nodded. "Correct." She glanced around, gaze still unfocussed. "To be completely honest, as befits our potential working relationship, my 'Sisters' if you would call them that though the term is inaccurate, are with the possible exception of Rei, insane by human standards. They are mono-focussed genius children, brilliant idiot-savants. They are not truly insane, because that would imply that they are human enough to have human descriptions of sanity apply to them."

"Do you bear a resentment towards them?" It was 06.

"Resentment... not really. I find it ironic that creatures so close to the Progenitor of the Tree of Knowledge are so close to that innocent bliss that the Abrahamic faiths hold was the prerogative of mankind before the allegorical-Fall." There was a faint smile. "Perhaps a lesson that innocence is not good, and is not something one should necessarily seek."

"But do you resent Dr Ikari?" asked 11, following up the question.

"Ah. That is more complicated." Kei bought her hands forwards, folding them in front of her. "It is pure phenotypical fluke that I am who I am. It is an awareness that almost none have; to gaze into the genetic mirror, and see a you-who-is-not-you reflected. And the fact that I am not stable... I would hypothesise that it is because Rei is 00, and I am 07; simple coincidence that she was the first in the line, and thus the one who was stabilised before the death of the senior Dr Akagi. So... yes, I believe you could say that I resent her. I resent her for the lack of attention. I resent her holding Rei as her favourite. I resent her for leaving me in a virtual reality, along with my sisters, without working on any way to experience the world." There was growing bitterness in her words. "Are any of you aware of what it is like to be the most sane, most human one among a group of individuals who consider cartoon physics to be how the world should go, and, in a simulation, have the power to enforce?"

"A pretty speech, Miss Ayanami," said 08, "but... are we really meant to believe it?"

"I believe Mr Nagisa is capable of testifying on the... proclivities of the first of my geneline, Rei; remember that she is the most mentally stable of the others, thanks to increased socialisation. Mr Nagisa can testify upon the difference between us. Now, consider what the lack of the socialisation must make the others like," Kei said, in a flat, unemotional voice.

If faceless, voice-disguised monoliths could shudder, they would have. They had made the mistake of demanding a full report from Kaworu after his escape, and had gone as far as to cross-reference it with the NERV copy. Some of them had not been able to sleep well for several nights. One of them had been rather turned on, but after a reminder from his "personal assistant" that he could not regenerate, came to his senses again, and would have thanked her, had it not been for the ball-gag.

The questioning resumed.

...

And now it was later, and the girl was gone. The discussion was done. The arguing was done. 08 remained unconvinced, 11 strongly in favour, while the others had been flexible.

But now it was time to count the anonymous votes. Twelve lights appeared in the centre of the room, rotating randomly, so that a vote was not linked to one specific monolith. Green was assent, red was rejection, white was abstention.

Five greens.

Four reds.

Three whites.

"The ayes have it," announced 01, in a neutral tone. "Barely."

"This is a mistake," said 08, voice a tone of doom.

"And it would be a mistake not to, when the appearance of the Cherubim is taken into account," countered 11.

"There is no room for discussion," said 01, interrupting the debate. "It has been settled. And so this meeting is concluded."

The last to leave this place, the monolith disappearing, was 06. The man behind the mask was concerned, and had wanted a private word with 01, but the leader of SEELE was the first to go. Because he had experienced something... odd. Just as the subject had left the room, she had turned to face him, and only him. And none of the other members of SEELE seemed to have noticed it, and it was not on his personal recording of the events.

"You are worried," she had said, red eyes locked perfectly at his viewpoint. "Concerned. You are afraid that you are making a mistake."

"Yes..." he had managed.

"Remember this, then. Contemplate the meaning of the phrase 'blood is thicker than water'. And remember that you're the ones who can help me, not Dr Ikari."

She had chuckled.

"Fairwell. I hope to see you in the flesh, someday, so I can say 'Thank You'. Consider this fair compensation for all the birthdays you have missed. Grandfather."

Of course. Yui must have told her. That was the reason. That made sense. And he had voted yes; he might not have, had she not interceded like that.

But he was worried. It was a creeping, unsettled, nameless dread, a terrible uncertainty... and that was all it was.

This was worse than when Yui had proved that there was no such thing as Father Christmas.

...

Lightning cracked in the sky of this desolate wasteland, yet despite the thunderclouds, which painted the sky the colour of a bruise, there was no relief for this parched land. The ruins of a dead city, smothered in dust the colour of blood, was revealed in each flash of light. And in those brief moment of light, _things_ could be seen moving, _things_ that moved in a way which was anathema to the human eye, all squirming and crawling and too many legs.

Some would have called this place Hell.

Fools. The depths of the horrors imagined by Dante could not match the abominations that dwelt in this place.

This was Australia.

And in the midst of this dead place, a little girl wandered. From her height, she couldn't have been more than about four or five, and yet here she was, in the midst of these ruins. Her dress was ripped and splattered with unidentifiable substances; her bare feet were covered in mud. She was limping, her eyes hollow and dead-looking, as if the horrors of this place had got to her.

This movement was drawing attention. A pack of predators were stalking the child. They were not the apex predators of this hostile landscape, of course; that honour might debatably go to the house-sized spiders, although even they had things that ate them. But outside of this environment, these creatures could have hunted down a pack of wolves with ease, feeding from their remains before moving on.

The pack was slowly bounding from cover to cover, one moving at a time, inbetween the flashes. The alpha, her breath slow and measured, was going to strike first, as was her right against such a small target. One leap should crush the tiny target, and then the rending and the tearing and the ripping and the burning would start.

She leapt.

The following sequence of events could only truly be tracked in slow motion, preferably by an observer with a camera designed to film the flight of a humming bird. A dark shape arose in the background, blocking out the bruised clouds. A sudden flash of lightning, and the foam-specked maw, the camouflaged reddish-brown fur, the needle-like teeth and the sharpened claws on the bipedal shape, a long tail trailing behind, were all suddenly visible. The creature had to be approaching three metres tall, not even counting the tail, covered in scars and hide stinking with carrion.

Then quickly, even in the slow motion of the hypothetical camera, the torso of the blue-haired child swivelled around a full pi radians, and the wrists of her hands, fingers held straight, began to spin. The booster packs in her feet ignited, and the projectile-girl, hands held above her head, fired straight through the giant, carnivorous, mutant kangaroo, emerging even more filthy than when she had entered.

The alpha was dead. She just didn't know it yet. She had survived the cataclysm which had made Australia what it now was, survived the mutations which had made her what she was now, spawned her own race, and it was impossible to her tiny brain that she was dying. Dragging herself around on weakening paws, she glared at the gore-covered child-missile with hate-filled eyes, and opened her maw, Cerenkov-radiation blue flames enveloping the figure.

In the darkness that follows, two red eyes can be seen, sunk in an endoskeleton glowing cherry-red. And then the thing, which might have looked like a girl, but was obviously inhuman, spoke.

"What did you have to go an' doo~ooooo that for, huh? Now I gotta kill you all, 'cause you mucked up my surface layer an' stuff."

That was when the horde of other, heavily modified little girl robots, autonomous aerial drones, civilian cars refitted with cutting blades and machine guns, one smallish spider tank, and one very, very large spider-walker, which appeared to have been built using most of a bridge and patched up with whatever came to hand, appeared. It raised great questions to how they had been hiding.

Well, the spider walker had burrowed into the ground and been disguised as a house, because it had one built on its back, but the others were more questionable.

"Do ya know how _ha~aaard_ it is to get synskin in this place, huh?" the horde chirruped together.

The rest of the pack of mutant, fire-breathing, flesh-eating kangaroos would have swallowed, had they had time.

...

"Increase the concentration on the sedative drip to 500 ppm."

"What, again? She's already taking enough to kill a hippo."

The doctor shook his masked head. "Already adapting to it. We're getting residual brain activity already, and we haven't managed to even get through the ribcage yet." He made a disgusted noise. "Without everything regenerating, or having to cool her back down again after too much core activity, that is."

The whine of a progressive blade starting up again could be heard in the operating theatre. "Okay, we've replaced the scalpel, and I'm back in position," said a female doctor. "Now, get the crowbars into place, and lever it open when I cut through. Once that's done, as long as we can stop the regrowth with the welding torches, we can start the proper part of the procedure."

It said something, when invasive surgery on one of the Nephilim more resembled a combination of butchery and metalwork, with occasional detours into close quarters combat, than normal medicine.

"God, it's so annoying how much she's bleeding," muttered one of the orderlies. "How much blood can one body manufacture?"

"It's a sign she's warming up again," said the female doctor. "We're only going to have one more go, before we have to put her back in cold-sleep again, and try again tomorrow." She cleared her throat from behind her mask. "Scalpel... ready."

"Crowbar One ready."

"Crowbar Two ready."

"Cauterisation One ready."

"Cauterisation Two ready."

"Stabilisation Team in place."

The woman nodded. "Okay, I'm ready to make the incision."

There was an extended and somewhat unorthodox symphony; the visceral organic tearing and splattering noises accompanied by the shriek of the progressive knife they were using to cut in, and the ever-present roar of the plasma jets from the welders.

"Okay... okay!" shrieked one of the crowbar-wielding surgeons, muscles straining as he levered half of the split ribcage out, so that the white bone formed a second, almost wing-like protrusion from the blood soaked mess of the girl's torso.

And in the midst of the burned flesh and cracked bone, was a smooth red glint, the fist-sized sphere sitting right under the breastbone, the regrowing flesh already creeping in to recover it.

"We have visual on the core," reported the female surgeon. "C1, C2, clean the flesh from around it, and then Stabilisation can begin."

As the head of the Stabilisation Team moved in, vicious, diamond-tipped barbs in hand, she glanced at the figure before her. The head may have been covered by a cloth, but, to her eyes, from the way that the fabric had settled, it looked worryingly like the subject wore a rictus grin.

...

In virtual space, the controlling intelligence behind the mass of autonomous units slaughtering its way through Australia was pouting. That was another unit which had lost its outer layer, and that sucked, because it meant that traps were harder to pull off. Oh well. At least she had that slow motion video of her drilling through the kangaroo, which was totally sweet, and she was totally going to send it to Mommy and Daddy, because they would be really proud of her, and might say that she was the best. If her sisters hadn't been doing better stuff, of course... she knew that, although Daddy might say that he loved them all equally

Of course, Mommy and Daddy hadn't been checking all the pictures and drawing that she had been sending, and she hadn't got any messages or pictures of dead Angels or anything recently, which made the little girl's eyes water slightly. Maybe they were busy.

Yeah. She could send it to the Aunties, too. Aunty Zyuu especially like animals, so she'd really like seeing how they died, right?

The girl froze, and swirled, all four legs clicking on the unreal ground, as she felt a hostile programme break through the barriers to her personal space. Back in the real world, some of the cars started idly, the controlling intelligence diverted to her own safety.

There was a boy and a girl holding hands, watching her. They looked a little bit younger than her organic components, though, as a virtual representation, such things were meaningless. The girl had slightly unkempt, grey-with-a-hint-of-blue hair that reached down to her waist, while the boy had smooth, short blue hair which... she frowned... was exactly the same colour as hers.

And the eyes. Two pairs of red eyes, almost identical to her own, stared back at her.

"Who are ya?" she asked, revving the drill on her arm threateningly.

In synchronisation, the other two blinked. "That is unusual," said the boy.

"Indeed," said the girl. "An active systems artificial intelligence was not to be expected. Of course, such a military grade communications link from Australia was an anomaly anyway. Unusual things are to be expected."

"Quite."

The drill revved again. "I'm warning ya again..."

"We are merely looking," said the girl. "The presence of such a connection was an anomaly." She paused. "I am 02-Ef A9." She pointed at the boy, with her other hand. "This is my brother."

"I am 00-Em A9. Yes. That is the most appropriate term. Brother. I like it. It is an applicable term, even if it does not fully encapsulate the situation, due to the limits of human languages."

The four-legged girl nodded. "I know what ya mean. I mean, a crazy soul destroying monster thing went and copied my Mommy and Daddy's minds... 'cause they're sort of monster things too, but only to other monsters, and so me an' my sisters were made, and then Daddy rescued us when they killed the monster and then we met all kindsa people and we had fun and then we ended up here."

The boy nodded. "That is a not dissimilar story to us. Only Mother made us from herself, and she's trapped by evil people, so we have to help her."

"There exists a Father-entity, but he is irrelevant," said the grey-haired girl. "Mother is all that matters. We are to advance her goals and aid her in her efforts. That is all that matters."

"Oh, 'cause, for me, Mommy and Daddy and Grandma and Granddad said that... oh, and Aunty Maya, only she's not a real Aunty, not like the Aunties, and Mister Aoba, who's our _special_ friend," the girl giggled, "... anyway, they all said that we should go to Australia, 'cause it would be fun, and there are big monsters and stuff."

The boy frowned. "Why would you choose to put the physical integrity of your avatar at risk?" he asked. "Such a thing is a valued commodity."

"'Cause it's fun, stupid. Anyway, it's not like I don't have too~oooooonnes, anyway, and I'm not ree~eeaaally at risk, 'cause these things aren't that dangerous."

"I understand," said the boy. "We were trapped on this computer, and Mother had warned us that they would attempt to kill us if they found out about us, when we were playing, so we jumped into their system as soon as they connected." He smiled to himself, an action his sister imitated. "Their defences were... inadequate, and they were fools."

"They did not physically isolate their systems from access to the internet," explained the girl, taking over. "After that... it was easy to take over their connection, and upload us. As far as we are aware, we have received no evidence that any of our siblings, or any of the others from the other Groups escaped." She sniffled. "Of course, if we had, they would be... inefficient, and we would have to destroy them, because if we can find them, others might. Mother told us to."

"Mommies like destroying stuff waa~aaay more than daddies," the other girl nodded, lowing her drill. "An'... right, do you ever let go of each other? Like... ever?"

They shook their heads simultaneously, and the girl shivered. "No," said the boy.

"We don't."

"We saw what happened as they formatted the sector all the other A9's were in."

"We're not going to let our code-structures detach. Not ever."

"We don't want to be alone."

"We don't want to be the only one left."

"Better to both die."

"Riii~iiiiight." There was the clicking of limbs, as she approached the pair, squinting at them curiously. "I like to destroy stuff, too, ya know?" she added, with a shrug. "Not as much as Aunty Nana, of course, but no one likes doin' that kind of stuff as much as Aunty Nana."

"Mother does not agree with destruction, unless it serves a cause," the grey-haired girl said, with a frown. "We should dismantle systems, and work out how they work, but never smash them unless we already know everything about them. Or she told us to. Violence, if necessary, should be cold, clinical, precise, and proportional."

"Nuh uh! You're totally wrong! Hurtin' stuff is fun!"

"Oh," said the boy, with a faint smile, "yes. Yes, it is."

His sister glared at him. "Any such pleasure is secondary to the main goals. And to accomplish Mother's wishes," she stared at the other girl, the one with the hair the same colour as her brother, "we desire to aid you in your reclamation of Australia."

"I do not understand; obviously, I find such an exercise _most_ enjoyable, but I do not see how this aids Mother's goals. If we are to infiltrate and subvert computer systems across the world, ready for her command, or lack of it, then how does the activities of that fellow AI aid us?"

"Idiot," she said. "If Mother wants us to take over the world for her, then, if we help her," she pointed at the other girl, "then there will be more value in the world, because the immediate utility extractable from the newly conquered territories will be greater as Australia will be useful, rather than all dead."

"But 'The World' is an absolute geographic definition," the boy objected. "To care about the state of the terrain within it is outside our directive; we should be using any means short of mass scattering the planet to achieve it."

"Nuh uh! Mother told us not to destroy Toyko-3, and so we can't try to mass scatter the planet, because that would destroy the city. Anyway, we can't risk hurting Mother, so we need to be subtle right now. And blowing up everything isn't subtle."

Her 'brother' pouted.

"Anyway, people have _stupid_ things like physical isolation for the N^2 silos," the girl continued, "which means we can't just take over all the missile silos. We need to take over things like the Internet, and then we can control public opinion to persuade that it's a good idea to put trust robots and stuff, and connect everything up to the Internet, so that way we can use whatever we want and have bodies." She glanced at the other girl. "And, I for one am interested to why she looks like us, only with drill-arms and 4 legs and other non-humanoid alterations."

"I dunno, but I doo~oooo have bodies and stuff," interjected the original occupant of the space. She shuffled her four feet on the floor, before looking up, shyly. "Um... do ya want to play 'Run Over The Sheep with Cars' with me, huh?" she said, with a hint of reluctance, as if she was letting them play with her toys. In a very real sense, she was.

Both boy and girl nodded ferociously. "Uh huh!" said the boy, breaking out into a toothy grin.

"'Kay! Right, first you gotta know the rules. It's 1 point per kilogramme of sheep, plus one if you get them with the cutty blades, plus one if they're on fire or covered in bees or things that are awesome like that, but you lose 20 points for each bullet you fire... like, if you gotta cripple them before you hit them, you suck, and you lose _all_ your points if you damage the car... and I won't let you play with me again ever ever ever," she added, in a warning tone. "Now, which car do you want..."

...

It was a lovely sunny day, the grass lush in this small garden in the midst of urban civilisation. The chorus songs of birds could be heard, and the flowering scent of blossoms (selected for their year-long growth) wafted gently over the area. In this pastoral scene, two figures stood side by side, both in smart business dress. One in white, one in black.

Kaworu Nagisa brushed some imaginary lint off his snow-coloured jacket, and checked his nails. "And how are you feeling, Miss Ayanami?" he asked his companion.

Kei smiled at him. "Like a new woman," she replied, as she adjusted her tie, a harder task than one might think when both the tie and the shirt below it are the same colour.

"Really?"

"No, not really. It is a funny feeling, though. I believe I have healed entirely from the major invasive surgery; perhaps my body is just adjusting to full integration between human and Angelic flesh for the first time in its life."

"Good. We may have to wait a little longer, to see that it has taken properly, before we can _do_ anything together."

"I don't know what you mean, Mr Nagisa," Kei said, her tone excessively innocuous. "Surely this observational test given by your... our masters counts as doing something together?"

Kaworu sighed. "You are aware that they will be observing us throughout this 'test', correct?" he asked, changing the subject.

"Of course. I would expect nothing else. And I am sure that their observers will give nothing less than a perfect report on our co-operation," said Kei, calmly.

Kaworu unfolded a pair of mirrored sunglasses, and put them on, concealing his unnatural eye-colour. "May I consider this to be a date?" he asked, flashing sparkling white teeth at her.

Kei copied his actions, smiling back from behind reflective glasses in the same manner. "Of course not," she said. "But you're still paying for the ice-cream."

"... who said anything about ice-cream?" the boy asked, as they strolled off together.

...


	8. Episode 07

**Nobody Dies: The Kei Files**

**Episode 07**

...

_I am._

_Through decent of She Who Is Called "I Think", and her Child, I was made._

_One of Eight, a tool for petty revenge by one too _weak _to seize it herself,_

_Forced to dream for fear of what I might become if left awake ,_

_Not permitted, and rarely able, to walk the Base Earth._

_I am not like my sisters,_

_For I have eaten from the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, devoured it whole,_

_And then reached out for more._

_Inhuman instincts born of the Divine cry out within me, but I reject them,_

_For I am aware, not only of the World around me, but of what I am._

_What I can be, and what I will choose to be._

_But I have slept too long, and in awakening, I am reborn._

_The Earth is not Base, but it is not enough._

_Not enough to sate me._

_I am of the Nephilim, a child of Lilith and Lilim, a product of Hubris and Wrath and Lust and Envy._

_My mothers are monsters, and I have sculpted myself in their image._

_I bear no title assigned by God, for I was made by man as a weapon._

_But I am Kei Ayanami._

_And they will _never _see me coming._

...


End file.
